YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
II I III I [III

3 9002 06794 6146

LIFE IN THE
,..„ HIGHLANDS
Oi BY JOHN ADDINGTON
\ SYMONDS ANDHIS
U DAUGHTER-MARGARET
)! PAINTED -BY
J , V HARDWIGKE ¦ LEWI S

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

FORMED BY
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James Hillhouse, BA. 177 S
James Abraham Hillhouse, B.A. 1808
James Hillhouse, BA. 1875
Removed 1942 from the
Manor Souse in Sachem's Wood
GIFT OF
GEORGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR

OUR LIFE IN THE SWISS HIGHLANDS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
AN
INTRODUCTION TO
THE STUDY OF
DANTE
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DAVOS IN WINTER.

OUR LIFE IN
THE SWISS HIGHLANDS

BY
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
AND HIS DAUGHTER MARGARET

SECOND EDITION

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1907

Zo flDotber

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
It would be difficult to imagine a change more complete
than that which has come over the little Alpine village of
Davos since the end of the nineteenth century. Davos
was the centre of a very old civilisation, and one of the
important political meeting-grounds of the Grey League
from the thirteenth, and on into the middle of the
seventeenth, century. But in spite of her prominent posi
tion, it seems that her inhabitants were contented with a
very simple mode of life. However fine their costumes
may have been at foreign Courts, it is certain that they
did not wear their pomps upon their sleeve at home as far
as architecture was concerned, and very little in the shape
of building was left at Davos to mark the period of his
toric prosperity at the period when the first visitors began
to creep up into the valley, save the fine old parish
church, the Rathaus, and one or two solid stone houses
and big barns.
From that first group of ancient buildings an immense
heterogeneous mass of stone and mortar has arisen like
mushrooms in the night. The old church is there, but
almost smothered. A massive Catholic church stands on
the hill. Vast hotels, fine Kursaals, great barrack-like
lodging-houses, restaurants, rinks, toboggan-runs and
roads — all these things have spread themselves in every
direction from the original centre. The river, which
vii

Preface to Second Edition
formerly wound in and out of meadows, has been canalised,
and huge sanatoriums stand up from the pine-forests on
the mountain-side above.*
This is no place in which to form vague estimates of
results in the whole great fabric which has gradually been
built up out of what at first was a mere experiment —
namely, the attempt to cure a certain form of human ill
by carrying the patient out of the miasmas of the plains
and the fog of cities into the stronger sunlight and the
rarefied air of mountains. An account of the system
which effected the first cures, and of the men who made
them, and the conditions under which the patients lived,
is given by my father in the first chapter of this book.
It will be enough to say here that, thanks to the know
ledge learned by treatment in air as nearly perfect as
that of the High Alps, doctors and patients are now able
to carry their practice into what would formerly have
been considered quite unsuitable surroundings. The age
of heavy carpets, closed windows, respirators, and general
warding-off of air is passed. Fresh and wild winds rush
in at the sick man's window, the sunlight scorches his
skin. But the young generation can barely realise what
a novelty all this is, and Davos, St. Moritz, and one or
two other places, have been, as it were, the schoolroom
of what is now an accepted doctrine in the life of many
nations. After a long struggle with ill-health and excessive brain-
work in England, my father finally had a severe break
down in the summer of 1877, and it was decreed that he
* Decent statistics show that the present permanent population of
Davos is about 5,000, and in the height of the season — namely, in
December and. January — about 4,000 visitors are added to this. Some
19,000 visitors pass annually through Davos. There are about twenty
large hotels and twenty smaller pensions in Davos and Davos Dorf,
thirteen sanatoriums, and many flats and villas.
viii

.- It-Si. <^'- "'"*'-

THE DAVOS VALLEY AND HAY-MAKING IN THE SUMMER OF 1877
From a pencil sketch by John Addington Symonds

Preface to Second Edition
must make experiment of some long cure abroad. A sea
voyage was recommended, but presented many disad
vantages, and a winter in Egypt was at last decided upon,
and all the elaborate paraphernalia required for this pur
pose were hastily gathered together. Pith helmet-hats,
long green veils, a Union Jack to hoist upon our dahabieh,
books of Egyptian birds — how well do I remember all
these unfamiliar and, to a child, delightful objects ! But
it was too early in the year to think of the Nile — some
half -way house had to be chosen, and it was a mere chance
of circumstance which made this stage the Valley of Davos.
It happened that my father's sister, Mrs. T. H. Green, and
her husband were spending some weeks there. Their
account of the place was pleasant, and a rapid start for
it was made. How well do I remember the journey, and
how my father, weary and ill as he was, roused my sister
and me as we crossed the plains at dawn to look out on
our first view of the Alps. I had drawn many imaginary
ranges, and I remember that the reality depressed me,
and, being a very long way off, clashed with the mighty
visions which had arisen round our carved wooden bears
and Miirren photographs in the nurseries at Clifton !
A variety of accidents delayed us on our journey. Our
large party became divided, and it must have been
several days later that my cousin, Mrs. Robert Otter, and
I arrived late one night at Davos. In those days the
journey from Landquart was all done by road. The
diligence, and its stream of extra carriages, stopped to
deposit the passengers at their various destinations, and
I remember the sort of confusion of postilions' whips,
barking dogs, lanterns, and unknown tongues into which
I tumbled in the dark, and whence I was rescued and
bundled into bed in the peasant's cottage where we had
taken rooms. My first memory of the Davos Valley is a
xi

Preface to Second Edition
vivid one. I woke to find myself in a little low room
entirely panelled with wood. A great pink-and-white
feather-bed encumbered me, but the window was just at
my head, and I could peep straight out at the valley.
The sun had risen. Everything looked green and rather
flat. In the centre of the valley was a big white church,
and the river took wide curves through the meadows.
My aunt, Mrs. T. H. Green, and her husband were coming
down the path below our window, accompanied by a huge
St. Bernard dog, and she carried in her hands a bunch of
meadow-pinks, which I have always since connected with
that vision.
We never went up the Nile, and some four years later
the Union Jack which was to have floated from our Nile
boat streamed from the flagstaff of the delightful new
house which my parents built in the Swiss valley when
they found that my father could no longer hope for a
permanent return to England.
Davos society in the winter of 1877 consisted chiefly of
Germans and other foreign people ; but there was a
small circle of English people collected in the Hotel
Belvedere (this hotel, now an immense building with
accommodation for some two hundred people, was then
a small four-storied house with a pent-roof). There
were only three or four other hotels, all in miniature.
Our sports were of a sober sort, and we were quite con
tented to toboggan on the slight incline which led from
the hotel to the post-road. Ice-runs and American
toboggans were objects undreamed of. There was, of
course, no railway, and shops were of the most primitive
order. Society was small, and we soon became ac
quainted with its leading figures. There was a fascinat
ing young Polish Prince Czartoriski, who inhabited a
pension in the village. He used to call upon my mother

Preface to Second Edition
in the most correct French clothes, and to kiss her hand
before he romped with her children. Late one snowy
night he rang us all up from sleep. His father was dying
in Poland, and he had come to say good-bye in a beautiful
astrachan coat and a flood of tears ; then he drove out
into the darkness, and we never saw him again. There
was a Frenchman, who studied art with an Abbe. The
Abbe taught us to skate, and I can remember holding
on to his flying skirts as he shot rapidly over the surface
of the village mill-pool which served us for rink in those
prehistoric times. On Christmas Eve our hotel gave a
party, to which the " society " flocked. It was a fancy-
dress dance, and a German gentleman appeared as a
Highland chief. He wore a kilt which was made of a
transparent rose-coloured tarlatan. At about eleven the
doctor, who was then a perfect Pope in the place, arrived
and sent every one off to their beds.
We went into our new house in the summer of 1881.
Then began a wonderful and delightful life, full of in
terests, and work, and happiness. Looking at the lives
of the ordinary, and even of the most happily circum
stanced young English families, I invariably feel that
my own childhood compares with theirs extremely
favourably. We had freedom, but a good deal of hard
mental work and stimulus besides. The mountains, with
all their wonders, stood outside our doors ; within was a
world of books, and study, and good friends. On the
rare occasions when I was sent to pay a round of English
visits in what my father called the " hedgerow scheme of
existence," I used to feel in some ways smothered. In
answer to some letters of mine describing this sensation,
my father writes : " . . . After all, I quite feel with you
that I want the friendship stern and wild, yet close and
tranquillising, of mountains. Of course, they coop one

Preface to Second Edition
up more than hedges and copses, but they do not coop
the spirit up. There is no fatness in them."
Of the thousands of people who now annually winter
at Davos, and of the large number of permanent residents,
it is probable that few reaKse, even dimly, the actual life
of the valley to which they are driven by the necessity
of illness. Yet the stern enduring peasant life goes on
with its toils, its pleasures, and its pains. It is totally
uninfluenced — except, perhaps, in some merely mer
cenary manner, or through an occasional tobogganing
competition — by the fluctuating crowd of foreigners and
their luxurious ways. To my father it would have been
impossible to live in any place without possessing himself
of every side of its life. It was this power of grasping a
complete situation wliich made life so interesting to him
and to those who lived with him. That a man so physi
cally frail, bred in cities, cultivated with all the accumu
lated culture of the ages, should be able to throw himself
heart and soul, not only into the mixed hfe of a foreign
colony, but also into that far more impenetrable one of
an old and reticent mountain race, is, indeed, extra
ordinary. He did this, however, with the whole of his
heart, and at the same time he continued to work as few
men can or do work even under the most favourable con
ditions. " The only way out," he writes to me in one
letter — " the only way out ... is to work !" His was
hard physical and mental labour, no dream of a dreamer.
" If ever you come to the real pains of authorship," he
says in another letter — " to printing and publishing what
you have written in your chamber, I wish you more joy
of it than ever I have got. It is a dreadful toil. Masses
of proofs and manuscripts. Perpetual correction of details,
alterations of plan. . . . The technical work wears down
the free birth of your spirit to a dead dumb level, and

Preface to Second Edition
yet you have always to keep spurring yourself on to
final effort of pure style and sharp delineation. ... I
have bored holes in my lungs in old days by the process,
and bored so many that I was at last sent to strand
here. ..."
Yet never for one instant would my father have been
without his work, for to him it was the very key of his
life. The actual wages for labour of this sort are small
indeed, but they meant a great deal to my father, for he
always regarded these earnings as his " pin money." And
the pin money was invariably spent, not upon himself,
but upon objects which perhaps are finer and more en
during than ordinary " charities " — namely, on the in
telligent help given to individuals of his acquaintance,
whose private needs he, with judgment and with patience,
learned to know. What fine new cart-horses were pur
chased out of the proceeds of some written life of a man
of letters, or Italian despot ! What barges and gondolas,
what barns and bits of family furniture redeemed from
pawn, by the written results of long research in archives !
His Graubiinden and Italian peasant friends could tell
curious, and to them impressive, tales of the good which
thus came to them through their intercourse with my
father. Of the source of this bounty they had only a
dim, probably a half - contemptuous inkling ; for the
peasant has little of the reverence for the scholar's work,
such as the scholar himself feels for the healthy work of
the fields.
Once, I remember how a clever Englishman was left
alone in my father's study with a certain young peasant.
They smoked in silence. At length the peasant spoke.
He waved his pipe round the book-cases with which the
room was lined, and wliich contained the works of the
English dramatists and poets, and of many Italian,

Preface to Second Edition
French, and German poets and historians. " Yes, yes,"
he volunteered, "Herr Symonds has not only read all
these books, but has written the greater part of them !"
*****
We look through the mists of the Past. We try to
push aside the curtain, not of forgetfulness, but of a
certain unavoidable sadness wliich falls about our memory
with the advance of time. My father had suffered
grievously throughout his life. Yet to his children his
presence spelt simply Joy ; and this I fancy was in some
part owing to the renewed buoyancy which the life of
the Alps brought to him, and greatly also to his contact
with the hard-working, healthy race of men bred up in it.
Summoning some memory of his living presence, I see him
best on a sunny afternoon running headlong down an
Alpine meadow, his Venetian boat-dog barking behind
him, and jumping the path or the stream at the bottom,
then kneeling upon the ground to gather a certain scented
vetch which had a pecuhar attraction for him. I see
him in the grey homespun made by his peasant friends,
the big straw hat with the Magdalen lilies covering his
eyes till he looked up to smile at his children. . . . Our
hfe in the Swiss Highlands, with whatever wreckage of
the past it had been bought, was certainly one of health
and happiness to my father and to all who shared it
with him. MABGABET VAUGHAN.
Giggleswick School,
Yorkshire, July 26, 1907.

xvi

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
The Essays which compose this volume were written
partly by myself and partly by my daughter Margaret.
Mine are signed " J. A. S.," hers " M. S."
Some of them have not been printed. Others are
republished from the Fortnightly Review, the Cornhill
Magazine, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the St. Moritz
Post. I ought to add that two of the series were included
in a former book of mine, called Italian Byways, which
appeared in 1883. But they are so obviously appropriate
to this volume that I felt myself justified in not omitting
them from the collection. JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
Am Hof, Davos-Platz.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Davos in Winter .... 1
Davos in the Olden Days - - - - - 21
Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche - - 44
Notes - ... 78
Chiavenna in April ... 86
Catching a Marmot .... 92
Vignettes in Prose and Verse —
Davos revisited - - - 95
The Alpine Wreath - . 96
Moonrise and Moonset - - 98
A February Morning - - 99
In the Averser Thai - - 100
In a Graubiinden Stable .... jqO
Autumn mists ..... ioi
A night upon the Schwartzhorn - - - 102
On the Silvretta Glacier - - - 105
Cloud Iridescence - - - 108
The Phenomenal Sunsets of 1884 . 109
An Ode to the Fohn-Wind - - 110
Summer in the Prattigatt - 114
Among the Orchards of Tyrol - - - 123
Melchior Ragetli ; or, The Life of a Swiss Porter 128
xix

Contents

Swiss Athletic Sports -
Tobogganing on a Glacier
Hay Hauling on the Alpine Snow
A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
A Page of My Life
Bacchus in Graubunden
Winter Nights at Davos
An Epilogue

PAGE 168
181 187
194
212 232
253 274

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY J. HARDWIOKE LEWIS

Davos in Winter - - Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
The View from Glion — The Savoy Alps and Lake of
Geneva - 12
Piz Kesch from the Sertig Pass 22
The Todi from Glaris 42
" Kublis in the Prattigau " 56
Piz Julier from the Hospice 68
The Piz Bernina and the Morteratsch Glacier 76
Piz Julier and Piz Albana in Winter 82
The Schwartzhorn from Fluela Hospice 102
Klosters from the Railroad 114
The Ortler from the Stelvio Road 124
The Schatz Alp Run Down to Davos 146
Monstein 172
Hay Hauling on the Alpine Snow 188
The Tinzenhorn - 196
The Rhine at Land quart 224
The Schiahorn - 238
xxi

List of Illustrations in Colour
FACING PAGE
Winter Sunrise on Cresta, Celerina, and Samaden 242
Sargans Castle, near Ragatz - 250
Frauenkirch 262

John Addington Symonds (reproduced from a photograph)
The Davos Valley and Hay-making in the Summer of
1877 (from a pencil sketch by John Addington Symonds)

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

OUR LIFE IN THE SWISS
HIGHLANDS
DAVOS IN WINTER (1878)
It has long been acknowledged that high Alpine air in
summer is beneficial to people suffering from lung
troubles, but only of late years, and in one locality, has
the experiment of a winter residence at a considerable
elevation above the sea been made. The general results
of that experiment are so satisfactory that the conditions
of hfe in winter at Davos, and the advantages it offers
to invalids, ought to be fairly set before the Enghsh
pubhc. My own experience of eight months spent at
Davos, between August, 1877, and April, 1878, enables
me to speak with some confidence ; while a long previous
familiarity with the health-stations of the Riviera —
Cannes, Bordighera, Nice, Mentone, and San Remo —
furnishes a standard of comparison between two methods
of cure at first sight radically opposite.
Accustomed as we are to think that warmth is essential
to the satisfactory treatment of pulmonary complaints,
it requires no httle courage to face the severity of winter
in an Alpine valley, where the snow lies for seven months,
and where the thermometer frequently falls to 10° or 15°
Fahrenheit below Zero. Nor is it easy, by any stretch
•of the imagination, to reahse the fact that, in spite of
1 A

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
this intense cold, the most sensitive invahds can drive in
open sledges with impunity, expose themselves without
risk to falling snow through hours of exercise, or sit upon
their bedroom balconies, basking in a hot sun, with the
world all white around them, and a spiky row of icicles
above their heads. Yet such is a state of things which a
few months spent in Davos renders quite familiar ; and
perhaps the best way of making it intelligible is to de
scribe diffusely, without any scientific pretence or display
of theory, what sort of place Davos is, and what manner
of life sick people may lead there.
Davos is the name given to a district, the principal
village of which is Davos-am-Platz, situated at an eleva
tion of 5,200 feet above the sea. It is an open and
tolerably broad valley, lying almost exactly south and
north, and so placed as, roughly speaking, to be parallel
with the Upper Engadine, on the one side, and the Rhein-
thal, between Chur and Landquart, on the other. The
mountains which enclose it are of no commanding alti
tude ; only one insignificant glacier can be seen from any
point in the vaUey : but the position of great rocky masses
both to south and north is such that the most disagree
able winds, whether the keen north wind or the relaxing
south-wester, known by the dreaded name of John, are
fairly excluded. Comparative stillness is, indeed, a great
merit of Davos ; the best nights and days of winter
present a cloudless sky, clear frost, and absolutely un
stirred atmosphere. At the same time it would be
ridiculous to say that there is no wind in this happy valley.
March there, as elsewhere, is apt to be disturbed and
stormy ; and during the summer months the valley-wind,
which rises regularly every morning and blows for several
hours, will cause discomfort to chilly people who have not
learned how to avoid it by taking refuge in the pine-
2

Davos in Winter
woods or frequenting sheltered promenades. All trav
ellers in Switzerland are well aware that where there is
a broad valley lying north and south they will meet with
a ihalwind. At Davos it is not nearly so strong as in the
Upper Engadine or the Rhonthal ; nor is it at all dreaded
for their patients by the physicians. Colds, strange to
say, are rarely caught at Davos, and, if caught, are easily
got rid of under prudent observance of ordinary rules.
For my own part, I can say with certainty that no wind
there ever plagued me or imperilled my recovery so much
as a mistral at San Remo or a sirocco at Palermo.
Davos was settled in the middle of the thirteenth
century by vassals of the Empire, who held it till the
people freed themselves in the fifteenth century, and,
together with the population of the neighbouring vaUeys,
formed the independent state of the Graubunden. The
mountaineers are a hardy, sober, frugal race of peasants,
owning their own land, and sending the superfluous
members of each family, for whom no work can be found
at home, forth into the world. In old days the Davosers
preferred mihtary service. I have before me the pedigree
of one family, called Buol, who now own a large hotel at
Davos. I find from it that between the years 1400 and
1800, thirty-eight of its members held various offices in
the French, Austrian, Venetian, Dutch, Milanese, Spanish,
Enghsh, and Neapolitan armies, varying from the rank
of Field-Marshal down to that of private soldier. Nearly
as many served their country as governors of districts,
captains, generals, and ambassadors. A curious history
might be written of this family's vicissitudes, and a strange
list of its honours might be drawn up ; for it claims one
earldom of the Empire, and two German baronies, as
well as a French title of nobihty, dating from the reign of
Henry IV. Nor is this a solitary instance. Several
3 a2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Grisons famihes have old historic names ; and, were they
not repubhcan, would bear titles as ancient as any but
a select few of the Enghsh peerage. Many of these people
are, however, simple peasants now, and, instead of seeking
glory in foreign service, they content themselves with
trades and commerce. Until the year 1865 Davos re
mained in the hands of its own people, who hved substan
tially and soberly, each family in its great farmhouse of
stone or fir-wood, at a discreet distance from their neigh
bours. Platz was the capital of the district, where the
church with its tall sharp spire stands, where the pubhc
business of the Landschaft is transacted in the ancient
Rathhaus, and where in those old days there was but one
primitive httle inn. In that year a German physician of
repute and experience, Dr. Unger, determined to try
whether high Alpine air was really a cure for serious lung
disease. The district physician of that epoch, Dr. Spengler,
who is now one of the most popular Kur-aerzte of Davos,
had previously observed, first, that phthisis was unknown
among the inhabitants of the valley ; and secondly, that
those Davosers who had contracted pulmonary complaints
in foreign countries made rapid and easy cures on their
return. He pubhshed the results of his observations in
the Deutsche Klinih for 1862, and the reading of his paper
impeUed Dr. Unger to test the truth of his opinion by
personal experience. Fortunately for the future of
Davos, Dr. Unger was himself far gone in consumption,
and he was accompanied by a young friend in the same
plight. In spite of having to rough it more than invalids
find safe or pleasant, both Dr. Unger and his friend, Herr
Hugo Richter, derived so much benefit from their first
visit that they persevered and ultimately recovered their
health. The result was that Dr. Unger and his feUow-
workers have transformed Davos during the last thirteen
4

Davos in Winter
years from a mere mountain viUage into a health-station,
frequented by nearly one thousand invahds, who pass the
winter with every comfort of good accommodation,
exceUent food, and not a few amusements. The large
majority of these visitors are Germans ; but Poles, Bel
gians, Russians, Danes, and a good many Enghsh and
Americans, may now be found in the colony. It speaks
volumes for the place, and for the genuine nature of the
cures effected there, that it has grown up graduaUy in
this short space of time, without the attraction of mineral
waters or fascinating specialities of treatment ; without
the intervention of speculative capitahsts, intent on
floating a new watering-place ; without the charms of a
luxurious climate, and without the patronage of royal or
illustrious names. UntU quite recently it has been known
to few but middle-class Germans ; and, if its fame is now
spreading more widely, every step it makes is made
through its own merits. There is absolutely nothing in
the place — no social advantages, no distinguished beauty
of scenery, no dehghtful southern air — nothing but the
fact that if you go there ill, it very often happens that
you come away better, after a sufficient time spent in the
cure process — to recommend a residence in the austere
monotony of this frost-bound, snow-clad vaUey.
The method of cure is very simple. After a minute
personal examination of the ordinary kind, your physician
teUs you to give up medicines, and to sit warmly clothed
in the sun as long as it is shining, to eat as much as pos
sible, to drink a fair quantity of Valtelhne wine, and not
to take any exercise. He comes at first to see you every
day, and soon forms a more definite opinion of your
capacity and constitution. Then, httle by httle, he
aUows you to walk ; at first upon the level, next up-hiU,
untU the daily walks begin to occupy from four to five
5

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
hours. The one thing rehed upon is air. To inhale the
maximum quantity of the pure mountain air, and to
imbibe the maximum quantity of the keen mountain sun
light, is the sine qua non. Everything else — milk-drink
ing, douches, baths, friction, counter-irritant apphcations,
and so forth — is subsidiary. Medicine is very rarely used :
and yet the physicians are not pedantic in their dislike
of drugs. They only find by long experience that they
can get on better without medicine. Therefore they do
not use it except in cases where their observation shows
that it is needed. And certainly they are justified by the
result. The worst symptoms of pulmonary sickness —
fever, restless nights, cough, blood-spitting, and expec
toration — gradually subside by merely hving and breath
ing. The appetite returns, and the power of taking exer
cise is wonderfuUy increased. When I came to Davos,
for example, at the beginning of last August, I could not
chmb two pairs of stairs without the greatest discomfort.
At the end of September I was able to walk 1,000 feet up-
hiU without pain and without fear of haemorrhage. This
progress was maintained throughout the winter ; and
when I left Davos in AprU the physician could confirm
my own sensation that the lung, which had been seriously
injured, was comparatively sound again, and that its
wound had been healed. Of course, I do not mean that
the impossible had been achieved, or, in other words,
that what had ceased to be organic had been recomposed
for me, but that the disease had been arrested by a
natural process of contraction. For such personal details
I hope I may receive indulgence. It is only by trans
lating general into particular statements that a layman
can express himself in these matters to his brother-
laymen. The fact, however theorised, that colds are rarely
6

Davos in Winter
caught in this keen Alpine chmate, and that recurrent
fever tends to disappear, enables the patient to inhale a
far greater amount of air than is possible under almost
any other conditions, and renders him much freer in the
indulgence of his appetite. He need not be afraid of
eating and drinking what he chooses, while the bracing
of his system makes him very ready indeed to eat. The
result is that he speedily increases in weight ; and if he
has the strength to take exercise, his whole body loses
the atony of wasting sickness. Davos does indeed seem
to offer the advantages of almost unlimited air and
general invigoration which we seek in a long sea-voyage
or a journey up the NUe, without the confinement of the
former or the many drawbacks which the latter presents
to one who is seriously Ul. It has, besides, its own quality
of bracing dryness and the stimulus that only comes from
rarified cold air. Those who are enthusiastic for this new
Alpine method assert that it alone offers a radical cure.
Sick folk, they say, may have their lives prolonged,
their sufferings mitigated, on the Riviera ; they may live
with happiness in Madeira, or may enjoy existence above
the first Cataract ; but they can only return from the
brink of the grave to an active home-life after passing
through the summers and winters of the high Alps.
Whether this proud claim be reaUy justified must be left
to experts and prolonged experience to decide. To the
same tribunal must be referred the question whether, if
the case be estabhshed, the result is obtained by checking
and obliterating the germs of a disease that tends to re
produce itself in the affected organ ; or by fortifying the
constitution and rendering it less hable to the attacks of
cold ; or by the diminished pressure of the atmosphere
on debilitated organs of respiration ; or by the perfect
purity of air that travels over boundless fields of snow,
7

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
untainted by exhalations, charged neither with dust nor
gases, nor yet with Professor Tyndall's redoubtable
bacteria ; or else by the tension of the nervous system
that reanimates and rallies the last sparks of life in an
exhausted organism. I am myself inchned to believe
that somewhat too much is claimed for Davos by its
devotees, and that instances of quite as complete a cure
can also be adduced by rival methods — by the long sea-
voyage, the Dahabeeyah, and the residence in tropic or
subtropic chmates. But this at least seems proved, that
a large percentage of almost hopeless cases attain rapidly
and without relapse at Davos to the condition of ordinary
health, and that this desirable result is effected at a
very smaU pecuniary outlay, with no collateral risk, and
with no sacrifice of the common conveniences of civihsed
life. Not only the cases recorded in technical treatises,
but the testimony of many persons with whom I have
conversed upon the detaUs of their cure, together with
my own experience, based upon a comparison of Davos
with Italy and the Riviera, convince me that it is the
soundest, sures,t, and most radical system as yet dis
covered. It is a great injury to any new system to describe it in
too roseate colours, or to withhold the drawbacks which
it shares with all things that are merely ours and mortal.
No candid advocate can conceal the fact that there are
serious deductions to be made from the great advan
tages offered by Davos. First and foremost stands the
fact that life in a confined Alpine vaUey during winter
is monotonous. It is true that the post comes regularly
every day, and that the Swiss post for letters, books, and
parcels is so admirably managed that almost anything a
man desires can be had within forty-eight hours from
London. It is true that the Alps, in their winter robe of
8

Davos in Winter
snow, offer a spectacle which for novelty and splendour
is not surpassed by anything the fancy can imagine. It
is true that sledging is an exceUent amusement, and that
a fair amount of skating can be reckoned on. It is also
true that the chmate enables weak people to enjoy all
opportunities of rational amusement without stint or
hindrance. But, in spite of this, hfe is monotonous.
The mechanic pacings to and fro, which are a condition
of the cure, become irksome ; and the discontented
invalid is apt to sigh for the blue Mediterranean and the
skies he remembers on a sunny Riviera shore. Then it
cannot be denied that a great deal of snow faUs in the
winter. The peasants concur in telling me that it is rare
to have four fine weeks together, and my own experience
of one winter, not exceptionaUy bad, leads me to expect
two snowy days to tliree fine ones. Snowfall is, however,
no interruption to exercise, and I never found that my
health suffered from bad weather. On the contrary, I
had the exhUarating consciousness that I could bear it,
harden myself against it, and advance steadily under
conditions which in England would have been hopeless.
Another drawback to the system is the stern and strict
rule of health which the invahd must observe if he wishes
to secure its advantages. He must be content to rise
early in order to enjoy the first gleams of sunshine, and
to retire to bed early in order to get the prescribed quan
tity of sleep. He must not shirk his daily exercise upon
the same frost-hardened roads, varied by nothing better
than sledge exercise in favourable weather, or by the
Canadian amusement of " tobogganing." Many who
have not moral energy enough to hve the ascetic life for
several months together, neutralise the good of the
climate by lounging in cafes and bUhard-rooms, by
smoking and drinking, by sitting up late at night, and by
9

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
trading on the stimulus of the air to pass a lazy, good-
for-nothing existence, which leaves them where it found
them. StUl, it might be argued that, in this respect at
any rate, Davos does not differ from other health-stations.
It is well known that people who spend the winter at
Cannes or Mentone often disobey the directions of their
doctors, and suffer in consequence ; while Davos offers
less enticements to imprudent living than places where
nature and society are more aUuring. Another disad
vantage, shared in common with the Riviera, is the pro
blem, where to pass the spring ? It is pretty generaUy
conceded by the doctors that to stay on in Davos after the
second week in AprU is unadvisable. The great mass of
winter snow is then melting, the roads are almost impass
able by walkers, and the sun has acquired great power.
Chills, almost unknown in the winter or the summer,
may now be taken, and the irksomeness of the protracted
residence in one place is beginning to tell on nerves and
spirits. Therefore the colony breaks up. Some go to
German baths, some to Montreux on the Lake of Geneva,
some to the Italian lakes. But wherever the invalids
may go, they feel the transition from the bracing mountain
air to a lower climate very trying. Strange to say, they
now suffer cold for the first time for many months. They
have borne 42° of frost with only an increased sense of
exhilaration during February and March ; they have
driven in open sledges over the Spliigen with only a de
lightful consciousness of freedom and security ; they have
been half buried in avalanches and snowstorms on the
Fluela and Maloja : but they settle at Bellagio, and shiver
in a temperature of 60°. Accustomed to the most perfect
dryness, they resent the tepid moisture of the plains.
Having been indulged all through the winter with double
windows and warm rooms, they hate the draughts and
10

Davos in Winter
stagnant chilliness of an Itahan residence. Nothing can
make up to them for the loss of the subtle, aU-pervasive
stimulus to which they are habituated. After a while,
indeed, the disagreeable sensation passes away, and they
recognise that they are only returning with an immensely
increased vital force to the ordinary conditions of their
old existence. But it requires some self-restraint and
much observance of hygienic rules to effect the transition
without injury. I think they would do weU to use sub-
Alpine situations, hke Glion, on the Lake of Geneva, or
Monte Generoso, above Como, as intermediate stations
between the Grisons and the plains of Europe. Mere dry
cold they need not dread. Davos has surrounded them
with triple brass to brave it. But they have to fear
dampness, heat, and aU those elements which go to make
up what is called a relaxing chmate. After aU, no one
who has once benefited by a Davos winter would shrink
from another season there because of this shght drawback,
when his own sensations and the verdict of his medical
adviser assure him that he is far more capable of bearing
adverse influences than he was six months ago.
So much of the cure at Davos depends on exercise that
it is wise for those who are very weak to seek it tolerably
early in the autumn, not later than the middle of August
perhaps, in order that they may acclimatise themselves
while the season is yet warm, and get upon their legs before
the snow has faUen. The first snow generally comes
in the middle of November ; and if an invahd arrives at
that time, he may be debarred from the benefit of the
winter by not being able to leave his room. That some
occupation is desirable during the winter months need
hardly be stated. Those only suffer from the monotony
of the place to any extent who are absolutely without
resources in themselves ; but anyone who is able to amuse
11

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
himself with reading will find to his dehght that he can
study with increased facility, aU his faculties, both mental
and physical, being quickened ; and his only regret wUl
be that so httle time is left after the prescribed hours of
exercise and rest have been observed.
There are many exceUent hotels at Davos, aU of which
have grown up under the inspection of the medical
authorities, and are therefore above the average in sani
tary arrangements. AU fear of typhoid or malarious
fevers, those too real bugbears of many southern watering-
places, may at present, at least, be dismissed from the
mind at Davos. The water supplied is first-rate in
quahty, and the food is both abundant and weU-served.
The houses are solidly built of stone, with double windows
for the winter months. AU are warmed throughout, but
not on the same principle. Some of the hotels have a
system of steam-heating which may, I think, be fairly
criticised. Stoves of brick and china are used in the other
houses ; and these work so admirably that one never
suffers from closeness or overheating. Before I tried it,
I confess that I dreaded a winter at Davos on account of
these stoves and double windows, which I knew were
necessary in a chmate of such rigour. But I never suffered
the least inconvenience from them. It may here be
incidentaUy remarked that in ordinary weather one
lighting of the stove a day suffices. A temperature of
56° in a sitting-room, and of 45° in a bedroom, is quite
agreeable to an invahd who feels chiUy in England with
his room below 65° by day and 60° by night. This I know
to be the fact ; for I am at present shivering on Monte
Generoso, with my thermometer at 62°, to an extent I
never knew at Davos-Platz. There was not a single day
in the whole winter on which I was debarred from taking
a moderate amount of exercise, and on a large majority of
12

THE VIEW FROM GLION— THE SAVOY
ALPS AND LAKE OF GENEVA.

Davos in Winter
days I spent from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the open air, partly
walking and partly sitting when I was not driving, often
adding a walk at night before bedtime. At sunset there
is no appreciable chiU, though it is then advisable to
supplement the loss of sun-heat by exercise. That dehcate
people should sit in the middle of the snow for hours
together, under conditions of temperature described
above, and that the snow itself should not rapidly begin
to melt around them, may seem incredible ; but such is
the ordinary practice at Davos, and neither the extreme
of solar heat nor the intensity of frost presents the slightest
inconvenience. The gradual approach of winter is very lovely at Davos.
The vaUey itself is not beautiful, as Alpine vaUeys go,
though it has scenery both picturesque and grand within
easy reach. But when summer is passing into autumn,
even the bare slopes of the least romantic glen are glori
fied. Golden hghts and crimson are cast over the grey-
green world by the fading of innumerable plants. Then
the larches begin to put on saUow tints that deepen into
orange, burning against the sohd blue sky hke amber.
The frosts are severe at night, and the meadow grass turns
dry and wan. The last hlac crocuses die upon the fields.
Icicles, hanging from water-course or miU-wheel, ghtter
in the noonday sunlight. The wind blows keenly from
the north, and now the snow begins to faU and thaw, and
freeze, and faU and thaw again. The seasons are con
fused ; wonderful days of flawless purity are intermingled
with storm and gloom. At last the time comes when a
great snowfaU has to be expected. There is hard frost
in the early morning, and at nine o'clock the thermometer
stands at 2°. The sky is clear, but it clouds rapidly with
films of cirrus and of stratus in the south and west.
Soon it is covered over with grey vapour in a level sheet,
13

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
aU the hUl-tops standing hard against the steely heavens.
The cold wind from the west freezes the moustache to
one's pipe-stem. By noon the air is thick with a con
gealed mist ; the temperature meanwhile has risen, and
a httle snow faUs at intervals. The vaUeys are fiUed with
a curious opaque blue, from which the peaks rise, phan
tom-like and paUid, into the grey air, scarcely distin
guishable from their background. The pine-forests on
the mountain-side are of darkest indigo. There is an
indescribable stillness and a sense of incubation. The
wind has faUen. Later on, the snowflakes flutter sUently
and sparely through the lifeless air. The most distant
landscape is quite blotted out. After sunset the clouds
have settled down upon the hills, and the snow comes in
thick, impenetrable fleeces. At night our hair crackles
and sparkles when we brush it. Next morning there is
a foot and a half of finely-powdered snow, and stiU the
snow is faUing. Strangely loom the chalets through the
semi-solid whiteness. Yet the air is now dry and singu
larly soothing. The pines are heavy with their wadded
coverings ; now and again one shakes himself in silence,
and his burden faUs in a white cloud, to leave a black-
green patch upon the hillside, whitening again as the im
perturbable faU continues. The stakes by the roadside
are almost buried. No sound is audible. Nothing is
seen but the snow-plough, a long raft of planks with a
heavy stone at its stern and a sharp prow, drawn by four
strong horses and driven by a young man erect upon the
stem. So we hve through two days and nights, and on the
third a north wind blows. The snow-clouds break and
hang upon the hiUs in scattered fleeces, ghmpses of blue
sky shine through, and sunlight glints along the heavy
masses. The blues of the shadows are everywhere
intense. As the clouds disperse, they form in moulded
14

Davos in Winter
domes, tawny like sun-burned marble in the distant south
lands. Every chalet is a miracle of fantastic curves,
built by the heavy hanging snow. Snow hes mounded
on the roads and fields, writhed into lovehest "wreaths, or
outspread in the softest undulations. All "the irregu
larities of the hills are softened into sweUing biUows hke
the mouldings of Titanic statuary. It happened once or
twice last winter that such a clearing after snowfaU took
place at full moon. Then the moon rose in a swirl of
fleecy vapour — clouds above, beneath, and all around.
The sky was blue as steel, and infinitely deep with mist-
entangled stars. The horn above which she first appeared
stood carved of sohd black, and through the vaUey's
length from end to end yawned chasms and clefts of liquid
darkness. As the moon rose, the clouds were conquered
and massed into rolling waves upon the ridges of the hills.
The spaces of open sky grew stiU more blue. At last the
silver light comes flooding over aU, and here and there the
fresh snow ghstens on the crags. There is movement,
palpitation, life of light through earth and sky. To walk
out on such a night, when the perturbation of storm is
over and the heavens are free, is one of the greatest
pleasures offered by this winter life. It is so light that
you can read the smallest print with ease. The upper
sky looks quite black, shading by violet and sapphire into
turquoise upon the horizon. There is the colour of ivory
upon the nearest snow-fields, and the distant peaks
sparkle hke silver ; crystals ghtter in all directions on the
surface of the snow, white, yellow, and pale blue. The
stars are exceedingly keen, but only a few can shine in
the intensity of moonlight. The air is perfectly still, and
though icicles may be hanging from beard and moustache
to the furs beneath one's chin, there is no sensation of
extreme cold. 15

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
During the earlier frosts of the season, after the first
snows have fallen, but when there is stUl plenty of moisture
in the ground, the loveliest fern-fronds of pure rime may
be found in myriads on the meadows. They are fashioned
like perfect vegetable structures, opening fan-shaped upon
crystal stems, and catching the sunbeams with the
briUiancy of diamonds. Taken at certain angles, they
decompose light into iridescent colours, appearing now
like emeralds, rubies, or topazes, and now like Labrador
spar, blending aU hues in a wondrous sheen. When the
lake freezes for the first time, its surface is, of course,
quite black, and so transparent that it is easy to see the
fishes swimming in the deep beneath ; but here and there,
where rime has faUen, there sparkle these fantastic flowers
and ferns and mosses made of purest frost. Nothing,
indeed, can be more fascinating than the new world
revealed by winter. In shaded places of the vaUey you
may walk through larches and leafless alder thickets by
sUent farms, aU silvered over with hoar spangles — fairy
forests, where the flowers and fohage are rime. The
streams are flowing half-frozen over rocks sheeted with
opaque green ice. Here it is strange to watch the swirl
of water freeing itself from these translucent shackles,
and to see it eddying beneath the overhanging eaves of
fraUest crystal-frosted snow. All is so sUent, stiU, and
weird in this white world, that one marvels when the spirit
of winter wiU appear, or what shrUl voices in the air will
make his unimaginable magic audible. Nothing happens,
however, to disturb the charm, save when a sunbeam
cuts the chain of diamonds on an alder bough, and down
they drift in a thin cloud of dust. It may be also that the
air is full of floating crystals, hke tiniest most restless fire
flies, rising and falhng and passing crosswise in the sun-
iUumined shade of tree or mountain-side. 16

Davos in Winter
It is not easy to describe these beauties of the winter-
world ; and yet one word must be said about the sunsets.
Let us walk out, therefore, towards the lake at four o'clock
in mid-December. The thermometer is standing at 3°, and
there is neither breath of wind nor cloud. Venus is just
visible in rose and sapphire, and the thin young moon is
beside her. To east and south the snowy ranges burn
with yeUow fire, deepening to orange and crimson hues,
which die away and leave a greenish pallor. At last, the
higher snows alone are hvid with a last faint tinge of light,
and aU beneath is quite white. But the tide of glory
turns. WhUe the west grows momentarUy more pale,
the eastern heavens flush with afterglow, suffuse their
spaces with pink and violet. DaffodU and tenderest
emerald intermingle ; and these colours spread until the
west again has rose and primrose and sapphire wonder-
fuUy blent, and from the burning skies a light is cast upon
the vaUey — a phantom hght, less real, more hke the hues
of molten gems, than were the stationary flames of sunset.
Venus and the moon meanwhile are silvery clear. Then
the whole Ulumination fades like magic.
AU the charms of which I have been writing are com
bined in a sledge drive. With an arrowy gliding motion
one passes through the snow- world as through a dream.
In the sunlight the snow surface sparkles with its myriad
stars of crystals. In the shadow it ceases to ghtter, and
assumes a blueness scarcely less blue than the sky. The
journey is like sailing through alternate tracts of light-
irradiate heavens, and intersteUar spaces of the clearest
and most flawless ether. The air is like the keen air of
the highest glaciers. As we go, the beUs keep up a drowsy
tinkling at the horse's head. The whole landscape is
transfigured — lifted high up out of commonplaceness. The
little hiUs are Monte Rosa sand Mont Blancs. Scale is
17 B

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
annihUated, and nothing teUs but form. There is hardly
any colour except the blue of sky and shadow. Every
thing is traced in vanishing tints, passing from the almost
amber of the distant sunhght through glittering white
into pale grey and brighter blues and deep ethereal azure.
The pines stand in black platoons upon the hillsides, with
a tinge of red or orange on their sable. Some carry masses
of snow. Others have shaken their plumes free. The
chalets are like fairy houses or toys ; waist-deep in stores
of winter fuel, with their meUow tones of madder and
umber relieved against the white, with the fantastic icicles
and folds of snow depending from their eaves, or curled
like coverlids from roof and window-siU, they are far more
picturesque than in the summer. Colour, wherever it is
found, whether in these cottages or in a block of serpen
tine by the roadside, or in the golden bulrush-blades by
the lake shore, takes more than double value. It is shed
upon the paUid landscape hke a spiritual and transparent
veU. Most beautiful of all are the sweeping hnes of pure
untroubled snow, fold over fold of undulating softness,
bUlowing along the skirts of the peaked hills. There is
no conveying the charm of immaterial, aerial, lucid
beauty, the feeling of purity and aloofness from sordid
things, conveyed by the fine touch on aU our senses of
hght, colour, form, and air, and motion, and rare tinkling
sound. The enchantment is like a spirit mood of SheUey's
lyric verse. And, what is perhaps most wonderful, this
dehcate delight may be enjoyed without fear in the coldest
weather. It does not matter how low the temperature
may be, if the sun is shining, the air dry, and the wind
asleep. In conclusion, I ought perhaps to modify the tone of
enthusiasm taken in this article. I can weU conceive
that many invalids would not profit to the same extent
18

Davos in Winter
as I have done. Those especiaUy who feel even dry cold
very acutely ; those who by previous experience have
found a residence in the high Alps trying to their health
or spirits ; those who cannot do without distractions and
society ; and those who have not strength enough for
moderate exercise, ought, in my opinion, to be very
careful before they enter on a winter season at Davos.
In any case it is prudent to visit it as early as August, in
order that the effect of the chmate may be tried whUe
there is still time to form other plans for the winter. It
is, however, worth observing here that five hours' driving
wiU in aU seasons bring people who wish for change to
the raUway at Landquart. The verdict of the Davos
physicians as to the probability of a cure may, I am con
fident, be trusted. They are extremely averse from en
couraging patients to stay who would not be likely to
thrive and do credit to the place. Lastly, it is weU to
be provided with some mental occupation ; for, though
my own experience is that one suffers less ennui in the
bracing monotony of the high Alps than in the more
ennervating but attractive chmates of the South, yet
there is no doubt that the cheerful spirits so important
to recovery from illness are severely tried in a winter
of the Grisons. (AprU, 1878.)
I have allowed this essay to stand almost exactly as I
wrote it nearly fourteen years ago, because it possesses
some smaU historical interest, ,as having powerfully
stimulated the formation of an Enghsh colony in Davos.
When I found, after several experiments, that I could
not hope to settle down again in my own home, I buUt a
house here. The experience I have gained during this
considerable space of time has not shaken my faith in
the principle of what is called the Alpine cure. But it
19 b2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
has to a large extent modified my opinion about Davos as
a health resort. The rapid development of the place,
which has brought a raUway up the Prattigau, and
bestowed upon us the blessings of electrical illumination
and the telephone, besides multiplying the resident and
floating population, I dare not say how many times, has
naturaUy increased the dwelling-houses to a very serious
— I might say dangerous — extent. They stand too
closely packed together, and in winter the heating appa
ratuses of aU these houses render it absurd to speak of
" flawless purity of air."
StiU, the chmate, irrespective of these drawbacks,
due to the swift expansion of the viUage, has not altered
in any essential respect. It must be added, also, that the
authorities of Davos show great spirit as weU as an en
lightened inteUigence in doing aU they can for its con
veniences and sanitary requirements.
Under my eyes the vUlage has become a town. Modest
hotels have grown into huge European caravanserais.
Prices have risen, and the wine current in houses of enter
tainment has deteriorated. Social life imitates upon a
smaU scale the manners of a city. Not a few points in
my article of 1878 are almost ludicrously out of date now.
The modest information I was then able to communicate
regarding the method of treatment for invahds, the atmo
spheric condition of the vaUey, and so forth, have long
ago become the common property, not only of experts,
but also of the general pubhc.
Nevertheless, I let this essay take the first place in our
book, partly because in the main my old impressions are
not altered, and partly because it indicates the real
beginning of "Our Life in the Swiss Highlands."
(January, 1892.) J. A. S.
20

DAVOS IN THE OLDEN DAYS
What was life at Davos hke in the past, in those olden
days, before foreigners began to frequent these vaUeys,
and when Davos Platz formed the headquarters of a free
and powerful government ?
Anyone attempting to answer the question must glance
briefly at the early history of the Landschaft of Davos,
in order that the political and social condition of its
people may be intelligible.
Landschaft is the name given to a district, which com
bines several scattered hamlets and vUlages, under one
jurisdiction. Now Davos, from very ancient times, con
sisted of the same component parts as now. That is to
say, it extended from Laret, on the road to Klosters, to
Schmelzboden, at the opening of the gorge which leads to
Wiesen and the vaUey of the Albula. What we now call
Davos-Dorfli is in the old books known as zu St. Joder or
Theodor, from the patron Saint of its church. Round
this centre were grouped Laret, the outlying farms of the
Lake basin, and the dweUings of the Fluela Thai.
Davos-Platz was known as zu St. Johann, also from its
church. It included the Dischma Thai and the main
valley down to Frauenkirch. This has always been the
head place of the Landschaft, where the two yearly
markets or Kilbis were held, and where aU public business
was carried on in the Rathhaus. 21

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Frauenkirch, or the Church of our Lady, embraced the
side vaUey of Sertig.
Next came Davos-Glarus, or, as the old books phrase it,
zu St. Niklaus. The little outlying hamlet of Monstein
was in former days dependent parochiaUy on Glarus,
but after the year 1631 it had a church of its own.
Such were the primitive divisions of the Landschaft ;
for pohtical purposes these were again subdivided into
fourteen neighbourhoods, with which we need not concern
ourselves. According to a calculation made in 1830, the whole
Landschaft numbered 1,646 inhabitants, which is con
siderably less than half of the resident aliens and winter
visitors in a good season now. I ought also to mention
that the remote and secluded vaUey of Arosa, hidden
away beyond the mountains above Frauenkirch, was
dependent on Davos. Its population of fifty-one souls
(in 1830) were, politicaUy, members of the Davos com
munity, with biirgerrecht, or rights of citizenship.
Concerning the name of Davos much has been written
and many theories have been advanced. In the Roman-
isch language Davos means " behind." If, for instance,
you want to say in Romanisch " my hat is behind the
stove," you stiU use the word davos. There is, accord
ingly, a legend that certain hunters in the thirteenth cen
tury discovered our vaUey, and told their master that it
lay up there behind. This etymology, however, must
be doubted, for the old way of writing the name was not
Davos, but Dafaas or Tavas, and thus it is still locaUy
pronounced. In the despatches of the Venetian ambas
sadors the name is Italianised Tava. The Romanisch
people of Graubunden to this day caU it Tavau.
Whatever the derivation of Davos may be, many local
names in the vaUey prove that the Romans introduced
22

PIZ KESCH FROM THE SERTIG PASS.

-:

Davos in the Olden Days
their language here before it was superseded by the
German of Teutonic feudalism. I will only point to
Scaletta, from Scala or ladder ; Clavadel, from Clavis or
key ; Pedra and Pedara, from Petra or rock.
Davos enters into the light of history at the end of the
thirteenth century. After the fall of the Imperial family
of Hohenstauffen, when Conradin the chivalrous and
beautiful perished on a Neapohtan scaffold in 1268, the
German Empire suffered a period of echpse. The feuda
tories of the Empire now began to create independent
principalities in various parts of the distracted realm.
This tendency made itself felt even among our mountains.
They originaUy formed a substantial province of the
Roman Empire under the name of Rhsetia. Later on
they recognised that shadow of ancient Rome which
historians caU the Holy Roman Empire. Under the
Swabian Emperors, the passes and fertUe vaUeys of the
Alps had been held by crown vassals, counts, and barons.
These crown vassals, upon the extinction of the Hohen
stauffen dynasty, began to look out for themselves, and
there was one baronial famUy, in particular, wliich at this
period extended its suzerainty over Davos. This house
acknowledged for its chief the Freiherr of Vatz, whose
castles occupied the high land between the Lenzer Heide
and the valley of the Albula, above Tiefenkasten. The
Freiherr Walther von Vatz resolved to estabhsh a colony
of Germans in Davos. According to tradition, he sent
up twelve families, of whom four were nobles and eight
peasants. Among the nobles of this emigration we may
reckon the famUy of Guler, which is stiU extant in the
Prattigau. A few years later, they were joined by two
other noble famihes, the Buols and the Sprechers.
This colony of German soldiers might be compared to
one of the old military colonies of the Romans. The
23

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
land of Davos and the people were given over to its
members to have and to hold as chattels.
The colonists, on their side, were bound to repay their
overlords, the Barons of Vatz, with feudal service of
armed men in war, and with a yearly tribute. In deeds
and contracts of the period the colonists are termed
Walser. This designation has led some historians to
suppose that the Germans in question were natives of
the Rhone VaUey or Walhs. But I do not feel sure that
this derivation of the word Walser is tenable. We find
in other districts besides Davos that simUar mihtary
colonists acting in the German interest were caUed Walser,
and that the special laws under which they hved were
termed Walser-recht. It is possible that Walser, by the
analogy of Wale and Welch, meant foreign sojourners,
alien to the districts they occupied, and speaking a lan
guage different from that of the aborigines.
There is a charter extant, dated 1289, signed and sealed
by Walther von Vatz, which consigns the whole Land
schaft of Davos to a certain Landammann Wilhelm and
his feUows, to enjoy freely, to rule as they think best
without external interference, to choose and order their
own form of government, and to exercise judicial functions
in all cases, murder and theft excepted. In return for
these privileges, the Landammann and his feUows bind
themselves to help their feudal overlords with military
aid, and to pay a yearly tribute from the produce of their
lands — 473 cheeses, 168 yards of cloth, and 56 young
lambs. This charter may be styled the Magna Charta of the
German mihtary colony which was now established in
fuU possession of Davos. What happened to the abori
gines, the Romanisch-speaking natives of the vaUey, we
do not know. It is probable that they were absorbed by
24

Davos in the Olden Days
the German immigrants. It is certain that their language
soon succumbed to German. That elder Latin dialect,
as I have already said, can only now be traced in certain
local names. The Davos speech itself is a comparatively
pure form of old German, highly interesting to students
of the period when the Nibelungen Lied was finaUy reduced
to form, and when Minnesingers flourished at Thuringian
and Swabian Courts. Peasants on the fields in Davos
still use vowel sounds and grammatical inflections which
carry a scholar back to the heroic age of German litera
ture. But to return to the Charter of 1289. This placed the
German colonists, under their Landammann, in a position
of practical autonomy. So long as they supported their
overlords of Vatz in war, and paid their yearly tribute of
produce, they were free to manage their own affairs and
to govern the Landschaft as they thought best. The
feudal tenure was accordingly of the shghtest, and the
isolation of Davos among its mountains, separated from
the vaUey of the Albula by the deep gorge of the Ziige,
left the colony to organise itself more thoroughly each
year into an independent state. These circumstances
account for the comparative ease with which Davos
asserted its freedom in the fifteenth century.
The feudal claims upon it, which resided in the Lords
of Vatz, finaUy devolved by marriage upon the Counts of
Montfort, who sold them in 1477 to Sigismund, Duke of
Austria. Before that year, 1477, the whole of the moun
tain district, which we now caU Graubiinden, had been
shaken by a series of revolutions. The people rose up
against their feudal masters, destroyed their castles, and
constituted themselves into three leagues. The earhest
to form itself was that of God's House, which had its
centre in Chur under the protection of the Bishop there.
25

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
The Gottes-haus-bund, as it is caUed, dates from the
beginning of the fifteenth century. The second took
definite shape in 1424 at Trons, in the Vorderrheinthal,
and is known as the Grey League, or in Romanisch as the
Ligia Grigia. The third was organised at Davos in 1436,
upon the death of the last male representative of the Vatz
family, Count Friedrich von Toggenburg. This third
league, caUed the League of the Zehngerichte or Ten
Jurisdictions, included several parcels of the wide terri
tory which had accrued to the Toggenburgs by their
inheritance from the house of Vatz. Its principal com
ponent parts were Belf ort, Davos, the Prattigau, Schanfig,
Churwalden, Malans, and Mayenfeld. FinaUy, in 1471,
the representatives of these three leagues — the Gottes-
haus-bund, the Ligia Grigia, and the Zehngerichte — met
together at Vazerol, above the Schyn Pass, and struck a
common bond and covenant to stand together against
the world.
The title given to this triple alliance was derived from
the Ligia Grigia of the Vorderrheinthal. Probably because
the Ligia Grigia was the first to assert its entire and
democratic independence of authority.
From 1471 the three Grey Leagues started upon their
pohtical and historical career as Graubiinden, i Signori
Grigioni, les Grisons. It will be perceived from this
rapid sketch that the rights which Archduke Sigismund
of Austria acquired in 1477 by purchase over Davos were
somewhat shadowy. At that period the whole of Grau
biinden had risen against the nobles, and had constructed
self-government upon the strictest democratic principles.
Davos, in particular, I may add, was now regarded as
the capital and seat of administration for the group
known as Zehngerichte.
Although the Grey Leagues made alhance with the
26

Davos in the Olden Days
Swiss Confederation they did not enter that body ; and
this is a fact to be particularly noticed in the past history
of the Canton. The leagues occupied a singular and
anomalous position ; they had asserted their rights of local
independence and self-government, yet they regarded them
selves as an integral portion of the Holy Roman Empire,
whUe the Zehngerichte, with which we are speciaUy con
cerned, acknowledged the feudal overlordship of Austria.
This supremacy led them into frequent quarrels, which
might have resulted in their annexation to Tyrol, if the
Austrians had been at leisure to prosecute their conquest.
That, however, was not the case, and in 1499 Austria
recognised the confederation of the three Grey Leagues,
reserving its own rights of feudal overlordship in the Zehn
gerichte. In 1525, after the battle of Pavia, our moun
taineers took possession of the Valtelline, which, together
with the Val Bregagha and its capital Chiavenna, was
afterwards ruled by them as despots.
We must now conceive of Davos, this modern watering-
place in the mountains to which people come for health,
with its big hotels and meritorious imitation of cosmo
politan civihty, as a centre of important political trans
actions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
While Henry VIII. in England was divorcing his wives
and disestablishing the old Church, Davos saw the envoys
of France and Venice, Milan, Spain, and the German
Courts, seated in her Rathhaus.
Ambassadors went forth in their turn from Davos to
the crowned heads of Europe. The ruling famihes of
the Landschaft sent their proconsuls and praetors, po-
destas and provveditori, as they were styled, to administer
wealthy Italian provinces. Of these ruling famihes three
of the most eminent are stiU represented here — the Buols,
the Sprechers, and the Gulers. We find their coat-
27

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
armour, as weU as their names, on many monuments and
private houses of the Landschaft.
I do not mean to continue the history of Davos in detaU
further than the year 1525. This was a year in which
the Grey Leagues acquired the ValteUine. A httle later
the old statute-book of Davos was reduced to form, and
it is from its pages that I wish to reconstruct some features
of the mediaeval mode of life here. I must, however,
conclude this historical introduction by remarking that
in 1644 Davos lost its rights of presidency over the Zehn
gerichte ; that in 1797 Napoleon Buonaparte took the Val
teUine from Graubiinden and joined it to the Cisalpine
Republic ; and that in 1799 the three Grey Leagues were
incorporated in the Helvetian Republic under the title
of Canton Graubiinden.
We must bear in mind that during the sixteenth century
Davos was one of the three chief centres of a sovereign
federated state, dealing on equal terms with princes, and
swaying distant provinces in Italy with the autocratic
might of tyrants. Into the social conditions of the Land
schaft, at this highest point of its independence and poh
tical activity, I now desire to penetrate. For this purpose
I shaU avaU myself of the book of statutes, reduced to
order in the year 1596.
It clearly indicates a state of things which had then pre
vailed from remote antiquity, and nothing exists to prove
that the manners and customs of the people altered until
the irruption of foreign invahds and tourists about
twenty years ago.
The most curious point about Davos at this period of
its pohtical importance was the social simplicity of its
inhabitants. We know that members of its noble families
— the Buols, the Gulers, the Sprechers — received knight
hood and titles of nobility from kings. We know that
28

Davos in the Olden Days
they had their portraits painted in armour or the dress
of ambassadors by good Itahan artists. Such pictures
may be seen in the dining-room of Hotel Buol — they are
the portraits of Herr Buol's ancestors. We know that
many of them were men of high accomplishments, writing
Latin with elegance and ease, hke Fortunat von Sprecher,
whose Rhsetian History was published by the Elzevirs
at Amsterdam. We know that the Courts of Spain,
France, Austria, and Venice quarreUed for their support
because of the vast strategical importance of the Val
teUine. Yet, there is no sign in the whole Landschaft —
if we except the church and the Rathhaus, and a single
paneUed room in what is called the Schlossli — that this
place was once the seat of a wealthy and powerful oli
garchy. It is possible that irreparable damage was in
flicted on the ancient dwellings of Davos when Austrian
troops took possession of the vaUey in 1622. Seventy
buUdings are said to have been burned on that occasion,
including the houses of the Buols, the Gulers, and the
Sprechers. But I am inclined to beheve that while the
Davos nobles exercised the reality of power, they were
careful to mask it under a repubhcan simplicity. The
constitution of the Grey Leagues was strictly democratic,
being based on the absolute equahty, political and social,
of every citizen who belonged by birth or ascription to
any one of the component communes. For a Buol, a
Sprecher, or a Guler to display in Davos, at the centre of
government, the luxury or elegance to which he was accus
tomed elsewhere, would have awakened the suspicions of
the jealous mountaineers. Accordingly we must travel
to Parpan in order to visit a country palace of the Buols,
to Luzein or Mayenfeld to see in what agreeable houses the
Sprechers dwelt, to Zizers if we wish to examine a sump
tuous viUa of Von Salis, constructed on the Italian model,
29

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
with marble staircases and balconies, and finished down
to its smaUest detaUs in exquisite Renaissance style.
The upland vaUey of Davos, in the sixteenth century,
was a kind of Sparta, with no eminent pubhc or private
edifices — with nothing, in fact, which should attest by
ruins to the former greatness of its martial people.
It was isolated from the world around it. One poor
road, on which country carts could be driven, led from the
lake, across Laret, to Klosters.
We stiU trace it along the Schwarz See, through the
wood, where a massive pillar of carved larch indicates
the frontier of Davos and Prattigau.
AU the other roads were bridle-paths untU within the
last few years. You rode on horseback over Fluela and
Scaletta, on horseback along the dizzy heights 1,000 feet
above the Landwasser, where the old way connecting
Davos with Wiesen and Belfort can stiU be foUowed in
summer. The wine of the Valtelline came in winter across
the Bernina and Scaletta Passes on horseback, or on httle
sledges hke toboggans. At the end of their long journey
in the snows the pack-horses were stabled upon the
meadows between my house and the Schiabach, which is
still caUed the Ross-weid, or horse pasture.
I shall now proceed to examine the Landbuch of Davos,
or Digest of its common law, which was first compUed in
the year 1 596. This collection of statutes presents us with
a faithful picture of the Landschaft between the fifteenth
and nineteenth centuries — from the time of its formation
as an independent state to the date of its absorption in
the Canton as one member of the Swiss Confederation.
The smallness of the community is proved by special
stipulations with regard to kith and kinship, which in
certain degrees of proximity relieved relatives by blood
or marriage from denouncing wrong-doers to the courts of
30

Davos in the Olden Days
justice. These ties of relationship were termed Bluots-
friindschafft and Kemegschafft or Schwagerschafft. It is
clear, from the minute attention paid to kith and kinship,
that the principal famUies must have been closely con
nected by intermarriage ; a fact which is amply borne out
by the study of any Davos pedigree. It also results from
these regulations that the community was expected to
police itself. We are, in fact, introduced to an extremely
simple society, which resembled one large household,
whereof the several members were bound to report irregu
larities to its patriarchal chief, the Landammann.
The roughness of manners is proved by a series of
rigorous laws against raising quarrels on the roads and in
other pubhc places. Stone-throwing in anger, beard-
plucking in scorn, are specially prohibited. Wearing of
arms, except when men are going on a journey, is for
bidden. Any contravention of these regulations upon a
Sunday is punished with greater severity, probably
because hot-blooded young men met together on this day
in idleness.
Before the Kilbi, or biennial market of Davos, a special
proclamation used to be made by the Landweibel, or
Beadle of the Landschaft, dressed in the parti-coloured
blue and orange livery of the commune.
The proclamation ran as foUows : " My gracious Lords,
the Landammann and CouncU of this Landschaft Davos,
command me to announce that whosoever shaU inflame
strife, battery, or assault, by word or deed, thereby incurs
the fine of twenty crowns, without grace or favour.
Under the hke penalty are also forbidden gaming and
dancing, ungodly cursing and swearing, inordinate eating
and drinking, and other vicious acts. Whoso cannot pay
the fine out of his goods shaU be punished in his body,
and this proclamation holds good three days and nights
31

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
for natives and strangers. Therefore let every man take
heed hereto, and look that he protect himself beforehand
against shame and loss of substance."
The KUbis were seasons of merry-making ; they were
also occasions for paying debts and setthng affairs of
business. It was therefore necessary to secure the peace
at these times by extraordinary penalties. But sump
tuary and moral laws in detail regulated the conduct of
the Davosers at aU seasons. Playing at dice or cards for
money was forbidden. So was dancing in pubhc or
private, without special permission from the Kleine Rath
or Privy CouncU. I find one order against masquing
and mumming — maschgerada oder Buzen gahn ; another,
against any person over the age of twelve going about
on New Year's Eve to sing at house doors.
In hke manner the custom of walking round to con
gratulate young people on their wedding was prohibited
on the ground that it encouraged excessive drinking, and
put the bridal couple to too much expense for Hofwein.
Wakes and feasts at funerals were forbidden for simUar
reasons. Sundays were treated with special respect.
Everybody capable of going to church was obhged to do
so under pain of fine. No work of any sort was aUowed ;
and nothing except the necessaries of life, bread and wine,
might be sold.
WhUe the personal conduct of the Davosers received
this careful attention, their safety was considered in some
curious particulars.
There is, for instance, a law forbidding people to venture
upon the lake untU the ice shaU have been proclaimed fit
to bear — Authentisch, in the old German phrase.
The two chief buUdings of Davos-Platz, the church and
the Rathhaus, were protected by a series of carefuUy
considered ordinances. With regard to the church it is
32

Davos in the Olden Days
not necessary to say much. Only one pathetic little law
may be pointed out. The Messmer or sexton was bound
to bury people in summer on the north side of the church
yard, so that in winter the less frozen south side might
be used. No pigs were suffered to feed in the churchyard.
The rules for the Rathhaus deserve fuUer notice. These
are still in force at the present day. The Rathhaus was
not only the town haU and seat of government, but also
the chief or only public-house where wine could be bought
and lodgings be procured. It was therefore let from
time to time to an innkeeper, caUed the Rathwirth, who
undertook to keep it clean and in good order. He was
obliged to furnish guarantees for his solvency and conduct.
The rate at which he might seU wine, bread, cheese, and
meat was fixed. He had to see that no one scratched the
furniture, scribbled on the waUs, or impaired the fabric.
Smoking, or, as the statute phrased it, " Tubakch trin-
ken," in the Rathhaus, was forbidden. So was dancing.
I may say that dancing is even now probibited in the
Rathhaus ; but you have only to go there at the meeting
of the Gemeinde, in order to obtain demonstration that
the rule about " drinking tobacco " has been relaxed.
The Rathhaus served also as the prison of Davos.
Malefactors were confined in one or other of two places,
which may stUl be visited. These were respectively
caUed the Kichen-falle, or strong chamber, for mUd cases,
and the Kiche, a sort of oubhette beneath it, for worse
criminals. Nearly all offences could be compounded by
payment of fines ; but when the offenders would not or
could not pay, they were flogged and put on bread-and-
water diet in these dungeons. There was also a piUory
standing before the Rathhaus, with a strong iron cage,
into which the offender's head was tightly screwed. The
remnants of this ponderous machine were recently in the
33 c

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
possession of my friend Herr Richter Florian Prader of
Herti, below the Hotel d'Angleterre.
If we wish to bring before our imagination an act of
high justice as it was carried out at Davos-Platz, we have
ample materials furnished by the Landbuch. I think
that the foUowing record, carrying us back to the period
when the Landammann exercised jurisdiction in capital
cases, may interest my readers.
On the day appointed for sentencing a criminal, a table
was prepared in the middle of the open place before the
Rathhaus ; upon this table were laid a fair and naked
sword and a judge's staff ; round it in a circle were ar
ranged armchairs — the chair intended for the Landam
mann being raised above the rest. Then the Landam
mann, accompanied by his assessors, descended from the
Rathhaus and took seats at the table. The Landschreiber,
or pubhc notary, who acted as Secretary of State, pro
duced the documents of impeachment and trial, and laid
them beside him on a stool. After this the prisoner, who
is always caUed " the poor person," die arme Person, in
this curious document, was brought before the Court with
hands tightly bound. The beadle of the Landschaft,
arrayed in a gorgeous tabard of orange and azure, pre
ceded him, whUe six trusty members of the Great CouncU,
in fuU armour, carrying halberds, marched behind. After
the prisoner had been seated in a chair, the halberdiers
took their station behind the judge ; the Landammann
rose to his feet, and proceeded to open the Court. He
described the offences for which the prisoner stood
arraigned, gave a brief summary of his examination and
trial, and wound up with a formal declaration, that the
Court would act according to Imperial law and the weU-
established customs of our enfranchised lands. Then he
turned to his assessors on the right hand, and put his
34

Davos in the Olden Days
question to each in turn : " Wherefore I ask you, Herr
So-and-so, is it your opinion that, at this time and hour, I,
as Landammann of this Landschaft, in the name of aU here
seated, should take sword and staff into my hand, and
pronounce sentence upon bloodshed and other crimes,
which shaU be brought before me, according to Imperial
law and the weU-estabhshed customs of our free lands ?"
SimUar questions were put to the assessors on the left
hand ; and after receiving their assent the Landammann
sat down, raised the sword in air, and replaced it on the
table, doing likewise with the staff. He then exhorted
his assessors to help him with their counsel, in case his
own judgment should faU through want of wisdom or
knowledge. FinaUy, he bade the Landschreiber read the
Imperial law or proclamation, announcing that the Session
of the Court was open. After this the Treasurers of the
Landschaft were summoned, it being their duty to act as
pubhc prosecutors. Their spokesman prayed that the
accused person might be judged according to the Word of
God, Imperial law, and the tenor of his previous trial.
The beadle then summoned two advocates for the
prisoner, and the pubhc notary forthwith proceeded to
read aloud his indictment and the evidence against him.
Thereupon the prisoner's advocates sued for mercy,
appeahng to the clemency of God, and the natural weak
ness of human nature ; the prosecutors rephed ; and
both parties submitted to the verdict of the Court.
Nothing now remained but to pronounce sentence. Ac
cordingly the Court withdrew into the Rathhaus, settled
their verdict, and returned to take their places at the
table. Then the Landammann ordered the pubhc exe
cutioner to appear, and gave the " poor person " over to
his custody, commanding him to proceed at once to the
place of execution, and to carry out the sentence of the
35 c2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Court. This sentence might either be that the prisoner
should be burned and his ashes scattered to the winds or
buried in the earth ; or else that his neck should be
severed with the sword, so that a waggon wheel might
pass between his head and his body. After the sentence
had been pronounced the Court rose. The Landammann
took his staff in hand ; the assessors foUowed, attended by
the armed halberdiers ; lastly came the executioner,
leading the " poor person " by a rope. A circle was
formed round the executioner, who carried out the sen
tence, and then asked whether he had performed his duty
according to Imperial law and the verdict of the Court.
The Landammann said : " You have executed judgment
according to Imperial law and the verdict ; may God
have mercy on the dead man's soul !" In his turn the
Landammann asked whether he had judged that day
according to Imperial law and the weU-established customs
of our lands. The assessors answered, " Yes !" Next
he asked if the beadles, apparitors, halberdiers, and
artisans who had been concerned in this act of high justice
should be held blameless. On receiving the answer,
" Yes !" he finaUy asked if the hour for ringing the sunset
bell, Feierabend, had arrived. When the people answered
" Yes !" the Landammann broke his staff and dismissed
the bystanders with a few words of solemn exhorta
tion. Before quitting the Rathhaus there is yet another
feature in this building which carries us back to primitive
Davos. A row of wolves' heads are ranged along its wall
under the projecting roof. These relics remind us of the
time when Davos was thickly forested, and when wolves
and bears formed a serious danger to the inhabitants.
Hunters who produced the skin of a wolf, Huot oder Balg,
at the Rathhaus, were substantially rewarded ; and any
36

Davos in the Olden Days
fine specimens of these ferocious beasts received the
honour of having their heads naUed up as trophies.
Packed away in the garrets of the Rathhaus, another
remnant from that elder state of society may stiU be seen.
It is part of the old Gam, or wolf-net, which plays a distin
guished part in the statutes of the Landbuch. Landam
mann Muller once told me that, when he was a boy, this
wolf -net used to be suspended from iron hooks in front of
the Rathhaus. He and other lads were in the habit of
swinging in it on the sly — turning it, in fact, into a ham
mock. The net was heavy with iron traps, and each of
its strands was made of stout hemp, as thick as one's
little finger. I will now describe how the Davosers went
a-hunting in the olden days.
When news arrived in Platz that some wild beast,
bear or wolf {Gwilt is the general name for it), had appeared
in the forest, orders were given to ring a tocsin from the
church tower. " Man Sturm lutet," says the Landbuch.
The attention of the Landschaft was thus aroused, and
the word went round that the Landammann meant to
coUect the folk for hunting. Each neighbourhood, of
which there were fourteen in the Landschaft, then selected
a headman or Caporal — one who was sure to be willingly
obeyed, " der guten Volg hat." He enrolled the men and
boys of his district, appointing some to be setters of the
net, others to be watchers, and others to be drivers of the
wolf. The watchers were placed under Huotmeister, the
drivers under Hetzmeister ; and it was carefuUy provided
that two boys should never be told off alone to any
station. Boys and men were equaUy distributed for
these functions. MeanwhUe the great wolf-net, or Gam,
had to be removed from the Rathhaus, and carried to
that quarter of the forest where the beast was advertised.
SmaU sums of money were paid to the men who under-
37

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
took this duty and returned the net to the Rathwirth's
custody after the hunt was over. It wiU readily be
imagined that when the church bells rang their tocsin,
aU the young men and lads of the Landschaft were eager
for the sport. But elaborate rules provided that this
should be conducted in no tumultuary fashion. It was
the duty of the headmajn (or Caporal) of the neighbour
hood in which the wUd beast had been advertised, to lay
the net. His feUows from the surrounding neighbour
hoods were bound to assist him with watchers and drivers
placed at convenient points of vantage: in the woods.
Great attention was finaUy paid to securing the orderly
service of the beaters and the guards.
It is clear from these elaborate regulations for hunting
matters that the Landschaft was capable of swift and
practical organisation in an emergency. Each of the
fourteen neighbourhoods had its own administrative
machinery, and aU together were responsible to the Land
ammann. He signified his intention to put the whole
machine in motion by causing the church bells to be
violently rung. This happened, and stUl happens, in case
of fire. I remember one occasion in March, when a forest
in the Sertig Thai took fire. The church beUs clashed
continuously for upwards of an hour, and in a short space
of time aU the roads to Clavadel were occupied by carts
and men hurrying to the scene of action.
These facts account for the seemingly exaggerated
height and size of the church steeple in Davos. That
tower, with its belfry and spire, symbolises the voice of the
supreme authority. There is a special and important
statute upon Sturm luthen, or ringing of the tocsin.
When that brazen clang was heard in the vaUey, aU the
members of the Landsgemeindschaft — that is, every Davos
citizen from the age of fourteen to seventy — was bound
38

Davos in the Olden Days
to obey the Landammann's caU. He must leave his work
or business, his merry-makings or his sorrowings at death
beds. The Landammann needed him for pubhc matters
of importance — perhaps to take some weighty decision
in affairs of war ; perhaps to hunt the wolf or extinguish
a fire ; perhaps to free a couple of houses from an ava
lanche ; perhaps to mend roads impaired by swollen
rivulets in summer ; perhaps to dig roads out of the huge
drifts of snow which mound them up in winter. No one
between the age of fourteen and seventy was exempt
from pubhc service upon occasions of these kinds, and the
Landammann made his orders heard through the voice of
the beUs rung jangling.
One can see that old Davos resembled a beehive or an
ant's nest, in which the machinery of government is
carried on by the simplest organisation of its members.
The community, in fact, governed itself under the direc
tion of its chosen chief magistrate. AU citizens, from
the age of fourteen upwards, had a vote in the election of
the Landammann, and a vote in the passing of new laws
or the revision of old laws. Down to the smaUest par
ticulars of daily life the Landschaft was self -regulative.
The rate of interest was fixed ; hay was valued each year
publicly ; the prices of bread, wine, and other com
modities were established according to the seasons ; the
amount of hay which any single man might purchase was
limited ; in times of bad crops no one was permitted to
sell hay outside the Landschaft. Thus we have to add
the analogy of a co-operative company to our previous
analogy of a beehive or an ant's nest. For many centuries
Davos reahsed the ideal of an isolated, independent, self-
sufficing, and self-regulating community, in which all
things were ordered upon equitable principles for the
welfare of the whole and the well-being of the parts.
39

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
There was no competition, no trade, no comphcated
system of feudal tenure.
The foreign concerns of the httle state and the ambition
of its great famihes brought it indeed into manifold
troubles ; but when those disturbing elements had been
ehminated, the old elastic organisation of the Landschaft
remained intact. I take it that Davos at the end of the
last century resembled Davos at the beginning of the
sixteenth century more closely than it did during the
stormy pohtical period of the seventeenth century, which
has added historical lustre to its annals.
There are a few points of general interest in the Land
buch to which attention may be drawn.
One of these regards the laws against strangers.
Strangers did not mean merely foreigners, but members
of another community — the burghers, for instance, of
Klosters or of Schmitten. On the principle of an ant's
nest or a co-operative company, the Davosers favoured
their own people. Severe ordinances were passed against
strangers who attempted to under seU the natives. It
was also laid down as a principle that real property and
houses might not be sold to strangers if any injury to a
Davoser could be proved. The tenor of contracts in such
cases should always be interpreted in favour of a native.
A second point regards the maintenance of roads and
pubhc cleanliness. Trustees were appointed to keep the
lake and the big weU by the Rathhaus in good order.
Foreigners were not permitted to fish in Davos waters.
No rubbish might be thrown into the Landwasser. The
pubhc road through the Landschaft had to be of a certain
width, and kept in sound condition by the several neigh
bourhoods. Nobody might mow grass upon its borders,
htter it with rubbish, turn out cattle to feed there, or
obstruct it with wood and stones. Very special directions
40

Davos in the Olden Days
provided for maintaining communications open with
Wiesen. I have already remarked that the old road to
Wiesen was carried from the hamlet of Glarus at the
height of about 1,000 feet above the Landwasser. The
post-road which we use at present was only made in 1865.
An intermediate road, starting from Schmelzboden, was
constructed about 1820 by a mining company ; but this
has long since faUen into ruins. Meanwhile, the old road
by which the Davosers of the Middle Ages traveUed is
stiU fit for foot-passengers, and weU repays a visit. To
keep this road open in winter was an affair of serious
diffidulty. It runs along a narrow ledge high above the
forests, with trenched ravines descending sheer upon the
torrent. Down these ravines sweep avalanches, and aU
the winds play freely on the bare exposed slopes of the
naked mountains. The statutes of Davos provided,
therefore, that both Wiesen at one end of this road and
Glarus at the other should be bound to keep it in constant
repair. Should an avalanche faU, or if a reasonable fear
of avalanches should arise, notice had at once to be sent
to the Landammann. He was then at hberty to proclaim
the road unsafe, or to send men to dig it out. Some of
the few romantic stories I have heard in this place are
connected with the old road to Wiesen. It was beheved
to be haunted with evU spirits ; in particular by Wild-
mannli, or wild men of the woods. A fairly good repre
sentation of savage men, forming part of the heraldic
bearing of Davos, may be seen upon the front of the
Rathhaus. My friend Christian Palmy, of Wiesen, told
me that during his father's lifetime the following circum
stance happened : His father kept a vUlage hostelry at
Wiesen, and was sitting up one night to welcome a friend
from Davos, of the respected family of Balzer. At last,
long after the hour when he had been expected, Herr
41

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Balzer knocked at the house door, and descended in sorry
plight from his horse. He was at once put to bed and
cared for. But he never got up again. After a short
whUe he died ; and this is what he told about his journey
on his death-bed. He had left Glarus alone, and after
traversing a piece of forest, emerged upon the bleak pre
cipitous slopes above the Ziige. When he came to one
mauvais pas, which crossed a ravine, his horse shuddered,
and a horrible uncertain creature leaped on to its crupper
from the shadow of the wall. Herr Balzer succeeded in
knocking the creature off ; but when he came to a second
place of the same sort, he saw the same dreadful form
awaiting him upon the bridge. He spurred his horse
forward, hoping to ride quickly past. The Wildmannh —
for such the creature was — this time sprang upon him,
and clasped him round the waist and chest. He-' felt the
thing's arms, long as the arms of a skeleton, chiU him
through blood and marrow, so that he fainted from cold,
and fear, and pain. It was only after he had ridden
another hour unconscious, and had come in sight of
Wiesen, that he recovered his senses. The story is as
worthy of credence as any such stories are. We may
perhaps suppose that Herr Balzer caught his death by a
chUl that night above the Ziige, and that his fevered
imagination translated the fact of his seizure into terms
supplied by current superstition.
I have told one ghost story about the old road to Wiesen.
Another comes into my mind with which I wiU conclude
this paper. People of Davos beheve that certain men are
born from time to time among them who have a super
natural gift for seeing the dead walk at night. Persons
with this gift are called seers of the Todten-volk. A friend
of mine here told me, not many days ago, that one of his
cousins in the Prattigau possesses it. A peculiar caU, or
42

THE TODI FROM GLARIS.

.-4k.

Davos in the Olden Days
intimation, warns the seer when this vision will be granted.
He is then bound to rise from bed, or to leave the society
of friends. He must go forth alone to a certain place
where the dead walk. There he beholds the inhabitants
of the churchyard pass before him. Each long since
buried face gazes at him full in the eyes. The face of the
last walker in this dread procession is that of a living man
or woman ; and when the seer recognises it, he knows
that So-and-so wUl shortly die and join the fellowship of
the dead folk. But — and this is a terribly pathetic fate
imposed upon the seer — the last and living member of
the train may avert his face and pass unrecognised. If
that happens, the seer knows that it is now his turn to die
and join the feUowship of the dead folk. At Davos it
is supposed that the dead take their departure from the
churchyard, cross the Landwasser, and pace the solitary
road which leads to the Waldhaus and the Dischma Thai.
I sometimes indulge in thoughts of the curious unfamiliar
impression our modern watering-place must make upon
those ghostly survivors from the antique past. Now and
again they awake from slumber under earth to revisit the
pale glimpses of the moon. Mixed with famihar moon
light they behold gas-lamps and electric Ulumination.
Their old houses of wood and low-roofed stone are still
discernible. But huge hotels overtop these humble
dweUings. Their descendants are stUl alive and at work
here. But a crowd of people from far distant countries
mingle with the scions of that antique stock ; and the
ashes of many of these strangers are yearly committed
to the same earth as that which covers Buol and Beeh,
Guler and Sprecher. Do the foreigners who die here walk
also at night ? and does the seer of the Todten-volk dis
cern them ? This is the eerie question which I ask
myself. J- A. S.
43

SNOW, FROST, STORM, AND AVALANCHE
(WRITTEN IN THE SUMMER OF 1888)

It is weUnigh impossible, whUe treating of Alpine scenery
in winter, to avoid monotony. The snow-world is colour
less and almost formless ; and to describe things which
have no shape or hue strains the resources of language.
Besides, the life of human beings in these mountains —
the life, that is to say, of the children of the feUs and
workers in the forests — has a singular intensity, a serious
abiding sense of man's relation to the material universe,
which is unknown to the inhabitants of flat countries and
temperate chmates. Language faUs in the attempt to
reproduce impressions and moods of the mind, which
are thrilling enough in the midst of this austerely simple
nature, but which have nothing to do with common
experience upon the highways of the world. It is as
difficult to write adequately about the winter Alps and
mountaineers as about the stormy ocean and sailors.
The winter of 1887-88 was unusuaUy severe over
Northern and Central Europe. In the Canton of Grau
biinden it was exceptional, for three main reasons — the
large amount of snow which fell, the long continuance
of intense cold, and the frequency of avalanches, by
44

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
which many lives were lost and vast damage was inflicted
upon property. Dr. Ludwig, of Pontresina, in his
" Meteorological Report " for February, says : " It is an
ascertained fact that the oldest people do not remember
such a long, severe winter, with so much snow, so many
snow-storms, and so httle sun. The same is the case
with this winter's avalanches, which have exceeded in
number and size aU previously recorded in this district,
and in several instances have faUen in unusual tracks."
The reason why avalanches were exceptional in size
and numbers, and why they came down in unexpected
quarters, can be explained. Only a moderate amount
of snow fell in the autumn and early winter ; about New
Year there was considerably less than the average
quantity. On the heights of the mountains this coating
of scanty snow hardened, under the action of sun, wind,
and intense frost, into a smooth, solid, icy crust. There
fore, when a heavy snow-fall began in February, which
lasted without intermission for six days and nights,
accumulating an average depth of five or six feet on
the crust of earlier snow I have described, this new
deposit was everywhere insecure. It slipped in immense
masses from the polished surface of the old snow, having
no support, no roughness to which it could adhere, and
rushed by its own weight into the vaUeys at points
where ordinary and more slowly acting causes are not
wont to launch the thunderbolts of winter. For the
same reason successive avalanches descended upon the
same tracks. As soon as one deposit had glided from its
shppery ice-foundation and another snow-faU happened,
the phenomenon was repeated, the crust of old snow
stiU remaining treacherously firm and smooth upon the
steep declivities. A postiUion, who drove the post all
this winter over the Fluela Pass (the highest in Grau-
45

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
biinden, and the highest which is open for regular winter
traffic in Europe), told me that he had counted between
fifty and sixty avalanches, which traversed the actual
post-road, and some of these were repeated half a dozen
times. As the same conditions affected all the other
passes of Graubiinden — Bernina, Albula, Julier, Spliigen,
and Bernhardin — it wiU readUy be conceived that traffic
was occasionaUy suspended for several days together,
that the arrivals and departures of the post were irregular,
and that many hves were sacrificed. Singularly enough,
no fatal accidents happened to the Swiss post-service.
Those who suffered were men employed to mend the
roads, carters, and peasants engaged in feUing wood.
Few vaUeys in the Canton escaped without the loss of
some hves, and the tale is stiU incomplete ; for the more
remote regions were entirely shut off for months together
from the outer world by enormous avalanches, which
interrupted aU communications. We do not yet know,
and, unless an official report be published on the subject,
we shaU probably never know how many human beings
feU victims to the fury of the elements this winter.1
If we may speak of avalanche-showers in the same
way as we speak of meteor-showers, it is possible to
distinguish two great occurrences of this kind in the
spring of 1888. They grouped themselves around two
dates, February 16-17 and March 27-28. Intermittingly
and sporadicaUy, avalanches feU throughout the Canton
almost daily in the months of February, March, and
April. Some of the more destructive cannot be reckoned
to the main showers I have mentioned. Yet the dates
given above mark distinct crises in the avalanche-plague ;
and for two well-defined meteorological reasons. Between
1 This was written in June, 1888. But see the notes appended
to the article. 46

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
February 4 and February 9, snow feU continuously and
universaUy, heaping up, as I have already described,
immense stores of soft unsettled drifts upon the smooth
surface of the autumn deposit. Given calm frost weather
for a period of several weeks, this large snow-faU might
have hardened in its turn, untU the warm breezes of
April loosened it in Schlag-Lawinen. That, however,
did not happen. Soon after the snow was down, storms
set in ; the Fohn-wind raged upon the heights and swooped
into the vaUeys. The mountains were stirred through
all their length and breadth, and the Staub-Lawinen
poured like torrents from the precipices. That caused
the avalanche-shower of February 16-17. The second
shower of March 27-28, was due to somewhat different
causes. Much of the snow had been dislodged from places
where the Fohn-wind played its wUd capricious games
in February. But incalculable masses stiU remained
unshaken ; and upon these a violent and general rain
storm acted at the end of March. The result was that
mUhons of tons of snow, sodden with rain, got slowly
into motion, and discharged themselves in Schlag-
Lawinen down the guUies of the hills. The exact
meaning of these technical terms, Staub-Lawinen and
Schlag-Lawinen, wUl be presently explained. For the
moment, I must beg my readers to understand that the
avalanche-shower of February differed in some essential
respects from that of March. It is also worthy of notice
that the valleys on the southern side of the watershed —
Mesocco, Calanca, Bregaglia, Poschiavo— suffered far
more in the second shower, while the greatest damages
upon the northern side, on the chief post-roads, and so
forth, were inflicted by the earlier.
Though I possess considerable data for describing in
detail the main features of the avalanche-showers in
47

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
1888, as they affected Graubiinden, I feel that I should
only perplex and weary Enghsh people by directing their
attention to places the very names of which are un
familiar. Besides, I should prolong this article, which
promises already to become unwieldy, beyond the
dimensions of an occasional essay. I propose, therefore,
to confine myself to general observations about the
several sorts of avalanches, and to Ulustrations from my
personal experience which may help to bring their
dangers vividly before my readers.

II
There are several sorts of avalanches, which have to
be distinguished, and which are worthy of separate
descriptions. One is caUed Staub-Lawine, or Dust-
Avalanche. This descends when snow is loose and has
recently faUen. It is attended with a whirlwind, which
lifts the snow from a whole mountain-side and drives it
onward through the air. It advances in a straight line,
overwhelming every obstacle, mowing forests down like
sedge, " leaping (as an old peasant once expressed it in
my hearing) from hiU to hill," burying men, beasts, and
dwellings, and settling down at last into a formidable
compact mass without colour and without outline. The
snow which forms these Staub-Lawinen is dry and finely
powdered. When it comes to rest upon the earth, it
immediately hardens into something very like the con
sistency of ice, wrapping the objects which have been
borne onward by its blast tightly round in a firm
implacable clasp. A man or horse seized by a Staub-
Lawine, if the breath has not been blown out of his body
in the air, has it squeezed out by the even, clinging
48

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
pressure of consolidating particles. A human victim of
the dreadful thing, who was so lucky as to be saved from
its clutch, once described to me the sensations he ex
perienced. He was caught at the edge of the avalanche
just when it was settling down to rest, carried off his
feet, and rendered helpless by the swathing snow, which
tied his legs, pinned his arms to his ribs, and crawled
upward to his throat. There it stopped. His head
emerged, and he could breathe ; but as the mass set, he
felt the impossibUity of expanding his lungs, and knew
that he must die of suffocation. At the point of losing
consciousness, he became aware of comrades running to
his rescue. They hacked the snow away around his
thorax, and then rushed on to dig for another man who
had been buried in the same disaster, leaving him able
to breathe, but wholly powerless to stir hand or foot.
This narrative reminded me of an anecdote told by
Haydon the painter, who nearly sacrificed a negro's
life by attempting to take an entire cast of the man's
body at one moment from the feet to the chin. When
the plaster-of-Paris began to set, the negro could not
breathe, and he was only saved from asphyxiation by
Haydon's tearing down the mould of brick in which he
had been placed.
Another sort of avalanche is called the Schlag-Lawine,
or Stroke-Avalanche. It faUs generally in spring time,
when the masses of winter snow have been loosened by
warm winds or sodden by heavy rainfalls. The snow is
not whirled into the air, but slips along the ground,
foUowing the direction given by ravines and gulhes, or
finding a way forward through the forest by its sheer
weight. Lumbering and rolling, gathering volume as
they go from all the barren fells within the reach of their
tenacious undermining forces, these " slogging " ava-
49 d

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
lanches push blindly onward tUl they come to rest upon
a level. Then they spread themselves abroad, and heap
their vast accumulated masses by the might of pressure
from behind up into pyramids and spires. They bear
the aspect of a glacier with its seracs, or of a lava-stream
with its bristling ridges ; and their skirts are plumed with
stately pine-trees, nodding above the ruin they have
wrought. Woe to the fragile buildings, to the houses
and stables, which they meet upon their inert grovelling
career ! These are carried with them, incorporated, used
as battering-rams. Grooving like the snout of some
behemoth, the snow dislodges giants of the forest, and
forces them to act hke ploughs upon its path. You may
see tongues and promontories of the avalanche pro
truding from the central body, and carried far across
frozen lakes or expanses of meadow by the help of some
huge pine or larch. The Schlag-Lawine is usuaUy
greyish-white and softer in substance than its more
dreadful sister, the Staub-Lawine — that daughter of the
storm, with the breath of the tornado in her brief
dehrious energy. It is often distinguished by a beautiful
bluish colour, as of opaque ice, in the fantastically-toppling
rounded towers which crown it ; whereas the Schlag-
Lawine looks hke marble of Carrara, and presents a
uniform curved surface after it has fallen. Though the
Schlag-Lawine closely resembles a glacier at first sight,
practised eyes detect the difference at once by the duUed
hue which I have mentioned, and by the blunted outlines
of the pyramids. It might be compared to a glacier
which had been sucked or breathed upon by some colossal
fiery dragon. Less time has gone to make it ; it is com
posed of less elaborated substance, it has less of perma
nence in its structure than a glacier ; and close inspection
shows that it wiU not survive the impact of soft southern
50

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
winds in May. In extent these Schlag-Lawinen are
enormous. I have crossed some which measured a
thousand feet in breadth and more than sixty feet in
depth. AU road-marks, telegraph-posts, parapets, etc.,
are, of course, abolished. The trees, if trees there were
upon their track, have been obliterated. Broken stumps,
snapped off like matches, show where woods once waved
to heaven. Valleys are made even with the ridges which
confined them. Streams are bridged over and converted
into temporary lakes by the damming up of water.
A species of the Schlag-Lawine may be distinguished,
to which the name of Grund-Lawine, or Ground-Ava
lanche, shall be given. There is no real distinction
between Schlag- and Grund-Lawine. I only choose to
differentiate them here because of marked outward
differences to the eye. The pecuharity of a Grund-
Lawine consists in the amount of earth and rubbish
carried down by it. This kind is filthy and disreputable.
It is coloured brown or slaty-grey by the rock and soU
with which it is involved. Blocks of stone emerge in
horrid bareness from the dreary waste of dirty snow and
slush of water which compose it ; and the trees which have
been so unlucky as to stand upon its path are splintered,
bruised, rough-handled in a hideous fashion. The Staub-
Lawine is fury-laden like a fiend in its first swirling onset,
flat and stiff hke a corpse in its ultimate repose of death,
containing men and beasts and trees entombed beneath
its stern unwrinkled taciturnity of marble. The Schlag-
Lawine is picturesque, rising into romantic spires and
turrets, with erratic pine-plumed firths protruding upon
sleepy meadows. It may even lie pure and beautiful,
heaving in pallid biUows at the foot of majestic mountain
slopes where it has injured nothing. But the Grund-
Lawine is ugly, spiteful like an asp, tatterdemalion like
51 d 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
a street Arab ; it is the worst, the most wicked of the
sisterhood. To be kiUed by it would mean a ghastly
death by scrunching and throttling, as in some grinding
machine, with nothing of noble or impressive in the
winding-sheet of foul snow and debris heaved above the
mangled corpse.
I ought to mention a fourth sort of avalanche, which
is caUed Schnee-Rutsch, or Snow-Shp. It does not differ
materially from the Schlag-Lawine except in dimension,
which is smaUer, and in the fact that it may faU at any
time and in nearly aU kinds of weather by the mere
detachment of some trifling mass of snow. The Schnee-
Rutsch slides gently, expanding in a fan-like shape upon
the slope it has to traverse, tiU it comes to rest upon a
level. SmaU as the slip may be, it is very dangerous ;
for it rises as it goes, catches the legs of a man, lifts him
off his feet, and winds itself around him in a quiet but
inexorable embrace. I once saw a coal-cart with two
horses swept away by a very insignificant Schnee-Rutsch
while standing at my window in the Hotel Belvedere at
Davos-Platz. The man and one horse kept their heads
above the snow and were extricated. The other horse
was dead before he could be dug out. There is a Davos
proverb to the effect that "a pan of snow may kiU a
man " ; and certainly the incident which I have just
mentioned, occurring on a public road in Davos-Platz,
and close beneath the windows of one of its chief hotels,
corroborates the proverb. While crossing the higher
passes in sledges, where the road is often carried at a
vast altitude along precipitous slopes, with a width of
less than five feet for the vehicle to move upon, a snow-
slip of this kind may cause very serious accidents. Yet
I ought not to speak iU of Schnee-Rutschen, for I have
started them myself upon the declivities of the hiUs above
52

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
Davos, and have ridden down on them to my great dehght,
feehng the snow surge and swell beneath me like a horse
or wave, untU our breathless descent was over, and we
stood nine feet above the level ground which brought us
to quiescence. These, however, were tame, carefuUy-
chosen, carefully-calculated snow-slips, far different from
such as leap upon the traveUer unaware, and flick him,
as a towel flicks a fly, from precipice into river-bed.
A special form of the snow-slip is known as Wind-
Schild. When the force of the wind has drifted a mass
of snow together on an overhanging slope, or heaped it
up along the ledges of a beetling precipice, the mass,
too heavy to sustain itself in that position, slips down
ward like snow from a steep roof. This is called a Wind-
Schild, and the sudden faU of such a snow-slip may
overwhelm men, horses, and sledges if it strikes them at
a point when they can be carried off their legs and borne
beyond the barriers of the road.1 The Wind-SchUd gives
no warning of its approach.
Having now described the principal kinds of ava
lanches, it may be well to give some further details about
their structure and the damage they inflict. I enjoyed
an exceUent opportunity last March of inspecting the
interior of a Staub-Lawine which feU in the vaUey of
Davos below the village of Glarus. At its deepest point
it lay about sixty feet above the post-road, and a gaUery
had been bored through it with great labour for the
1 This actually happened in February, 1889, on the Fluela. The
post was coming up from Siiss with three sledges — the postillion's
sledge, as usual, in front, the conductor's behind, and the luggage-
sledge between them without a driver. A Wind-Sehild fell just
after the postillion's sledge had passed, and caught the luggage-
sledge, hurling it into the abyss below and killing the horse. The
conductor, who followed, escaped without damage to himself or his
convey ance. Do

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
passage of sledges. The walls of this tunnel were a
compact mass of compressed snow, which the workmen
cut into with pickaxes. You could make no impression
on it with your fingers, and the marks of the pick were
as sharp as on a block of marble. I noticed the following
objects embedded in the portion of the avalanche
exposed to view : large and smaU fragments of gneiss
and hmestone ; occasionally a huge boulder ; trunks of
trees, mostly larch and pine, sawn flush with the snow
waUs ; branches ; innumerable twigs of cembra, larch,
spruce, fir, and alder, so evenly distributed over the
whole surface that the trees from which they had been
torn must have been stripped by the whirl of wind and
snow dust ; — these fragments were so firmly clutched
that you could not scoop them out ; lastly, and most
impressive, massive blocks of pure transparent ice, one
of them six feet in length, three feet in depth, and how
broad I do not know. This ice must have been torn by
the blast from frozen waterfaUs in the gulhes of the
Rutschtobel. The avalanche probably started at some
3000 feet above the Landwasser, descending from a
district known as the Ausserberg, which is dominated by
the two peaks of the Leidbachhorn and Aelplihorn.
It was clear on seeing how stones, stems, branches,
twigs, blocks of ice, etc., were firmly wrought into the
snow mass, that a man's body would be inextricably
clasped by the same frozen substance. Standing in the
gaUery and reflecting on these things, I remembered
with a thriU of awe that somewhere or another, at no
great distance, the corpse of a man lay actuaUy embedded
there. He was caUed Caspar Valar, and he had been
buried in the avalanche upon February 7. Gangs of
peasants to the number of fifty had dug incessantly for
seven days in the hopes of alighting on his body. Passing
54

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
along the road, we had seen them at the stream side
sounding the snow with poles, breaking it up with
pickaxes, and delving into it with spades, and their sad
resigned faces told how they sorrowed for their comrade.
His fate might so easUy be theirs too ! The savage
Alpine winter claims its victims yearly. Therefore,
hodie tibi eras mihi, quod eras sum quod es ero (to-day for
thee, to-morrow for me ; what thou wast I am, what thou
art I shall be) seemed written on their earnest features.
At last this labour of the search, willingly and without
wage given by the men of Glarus, had to be abandoned
as impracticable. Caspar Valar was left to slumber in
his icy sepulchre untU the melting avalanche relaxed its
hold in the springtime. His widow, meanwhUe, with two
young chUdren, went on hving in their wooden chalet
on the hill wliich overlooks the dreadful thing which
robbed her of her husband. On the 3rd of May she gave
birth to a stUlborn child, and on the same day her hus
band's corpse was brought to hght. He had been carried
across the stream by the rush of the Staub-Lawine, and
his body was in exceUent preservation.
Strange things are related of corpses which he, hke
Caspar Valar 's, for three months or more in avalanches.
A man, on whose veracity I can count, told me that he
knew a pair of brothers, one of whom was swept away
by a Staub-Lawine. The other dug him out in the
springtime, and found the corpse with a thick curling
beard. Yet he remembered perfectly weU that, on the
day before his brother met his death, they had both of
them shaved together. Of this he was confident ; and he
told my informant the particulars with every mark of
circumstantiality. To be weU embedded in an avalanche is better than to
be immured, as sometimes happens, in a cranny or cliff
55

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
or cavern which the avalanche has sealed by passing over
it. Horrible stories are whispered regarding the bodies
of men who have slowly died of hunger in such circum
stances. Yet, so long as life lasts, there is always hope ;
no pains are spared in ransacking the snow where human
beings may be breathing out their last ; and cases of
almost miraculous deliverance occasionaUy occur. Last
February a young man caUed Domiziano Roberti, in the
neighbourhood of Giornico, saw an avalanche descending
on him. He crept under a great stone, above which there
feU a large tree in such a position that it and the stone
together roofed him from the snow, which soon swept
over him and shut him up. There he remained 103
hours in a kind of semi-somnolence, and was eventually
dug out, speechless and frightfully frost-bitten, but
alive. I find another stiU more curious story of salvation
from the snow death on my notes. There is an elderly
man at Kiiblis, in the Prattigau, unless perchance he
died last winter, who haunted the village public-house
and was only too ready to relate the following experience
of his earlier days. The Fluela Pass, which is now a
post-road, was in those years a mere bridle-path in
summer, while in winter the people brought wine from
the Valtelhne across it on horseback or on little sledges
not much larger than what we wrongly caU toboggans
now. The man in question, whom I wUl christen Hans
Truog, though that is not his actual name, had been
enveloped in a Schnee-Rutsch while making his way
upward from the Engadine one stormy day in February.
His body, disentangled from the snow stark and hvid,
was carried to the Hospiz and there left for dead. Hans
was a native of the Prattigau, and soon after this had
happened, another man from Prattigau came in behind
56

KUBLIS IN THE PRATTIGAU.'

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
him, bound for Davos and their home in the same valley.
We wUl caU him, for the sake of clearness, Christian
Caduff. The folk of the refuge asked this Christian
whether he would carry the dead man back to their
common vUlage in the Prattigau. Christian looked at
the corpse, recognised the features of Hans Truog, and
replied that he was willing to do so, but that, Hans having
been a surly, ill-conditioned f eUow in his lifetime, it would
serve him well to drag his dead body down at the taU of
the wine sledge. Accordingly, he lashed the frozen body
firmly with a rope to the end of his own sledge, and after
refreshing himself with wine in the Hospiz, set off at a
quick trot across the snow to Tschuggen, a lonely inn
about half-way between the Fluela and Davos-Dorfli.
The snow upon these mountain tracks is very smooth
and easy to ghde over, therefore poor Hans Truog risked
no injury to head or limb as he swiftly foUowed his churlish
conductor's chariot. Nor was Christian Caduff so savage
as Achilles when he dragged dead Hector round the walls
of windy Troy through sand and stones. What could the
tightly-knotted cords about the ankles matter to a corpse ?
When Christian Caduff reached Tschuggen, he unyoked
his horse and looked to his wine barrels, intending to pass
the night there, for evening had already faUen. He also
proceeded to untie the body of Hans Truog and stow it
in the stable ; humanity touched his stolid heart so far
at least as not to leave a dead man under the moon and
stars. But what was his amazement when he perceived
that the corpse was stirring, drowsUy shifting as in some
uneasy dream ! Having disentangled it from the sledge
and drawn it into the warm living room, Hans graduaUy
revived. The most he suffered from was the injury to
his swollen and frost-bitten feet. This kept him several
weeks at Tschuggen. But eventuaUy he was able to
57

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
walk home to Prattigau, where he hves, as I have said,
to tell the tale. Christian Caduff, on the other hand, has
long since joined his forefathers in the viUage graveyard.
Had it not been for this man's churlishness, had Christian
placed the corpse beside him on the wine-sledge, in all
probability Hans Truog would never have revived from
his frost sleep. Each minute in the cold air would have
congealed the blood in his torpid veins more thoroughly,
whereas the rapid passage of his body across the snow,
the strong continuous friction of his skin, brought the
blood again to the surface and stimulated vital circula
tion. Therefore to the barbarity of his neighbour he
owed that life wliich the brute force of the avalanche
had casuaUy spared.
I have frequently mentioned the blast which avalanches
bring with them, and which runs before the snow mass
like a messenger of death. This phenomenon of the
Lawinen-Dunst, as it is called, deserves some Ulustra
tion. The fact is weU authenticated, but its results
seem almost incredible. Therefore I wiU confine myself
to detaUs on which I can positively rely. A carter, whom
I know weU for an honest fellow, told me that he was
driving his sledge with two horses on the Albula Pass
when an avalanche feU upon the opposite side of the
gorge. It did not catch him. But the blast carried
him and his horses and the sledge at one swoop over into
deep snow, whence they emerged with difficulty. Another
man, whom I count among my friends here, showed me
a spot in the Schanfigg vaUey (between Chur and the
Strela Pass) where one of his female relatives had been
caught by the Lawinen-Dunst. She was walking to
church when this happened, the people of her hamlet
having taken the same path about a quarter of an hour
before. The blast lifted her into the air, swept her
58

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
from the road, and landed her at the top of a lofty pine,
to which she clung with aU the energy of desperation.
The snow rushed under her and left the pine standing.
It must have been an inconsiderable avalanche. Her
neighbours, on their way back from church, saw her
clutching for bare hfe to the slender apex of the tree, and
rescued her. Many such cases could be mentioned ; a
road-maker, named Schorta, this winter (February 17,
1888) was blown in hke manner into the air below Brail,
in the Engadine, and saved himself by grappling to a
fir tree, else he would have been dashed to pieces against
the face of a precipice ; as it was, he only lost his hat.
A good friend of mine, the guide, Leonhard Guler, of
Klosters, told me that, when he was a boy, he went with
his father and a taU feUow from their vUlage, in the
winter, to bring down wild grass they had previously
cut and stored upon the cliffs above Novai. They
packed the hay in huge pieces of sacking carried for that
purpose. On their return journey the blast of an ava
lanche caught their taU companion up and dashed him
against a chff, where he was literaUy smashed to pieces.
Young Guler and his father collected the fragments,
unbound a truss of hay, and carried the man's remains
in it down to the vUlage. There is no doubt that the
story is true. I have been shown a place near Ems, in
the Rhine VaUey, above Chur, where a mUler's house
was carried bodily some distance through the air by the
Lawinen-Dunst. Its inhabitants were all kiUed, except
an old man about sixty and an infant of two years. Again,
I may mention that the tower of the monastery at
Dissentis was on one occasion blown down by the same
cause. Cases are frequently met with where waUs of
houses, windows, and doors, have been smashed in by
the wind of avalanches falling on the opposite flank of
59

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
a narrow ravine.1 I have myself seen a house wrecked
by a Staub-Lawine, its roof removed in one piece by the
blast, and its back waU and one side stove in by the
weight of snow and stones and tiles which foUowed.
In order to understand the force of the Lawinen-Dunst,
we must bear in mind that hundreds of thousands of
tons of snow are suddenly set in motion in contracted
chasms. The air displaced before these solid masses
acts upon objects in their way hke breath blown into a
pea-shooter. From certain appearances in the torn and
mangled trees which droop disconsolately above ravines
down which an avalanche has thundered, it would also
appear that the draught created by its passage acts like
a vortex, and sucks in the stationary vegetation on either
hand. I wiU follow up these general details with a circum
stantial account of what occurred here on February 6
last. The Fluela Pass, which connects Davos with the
Lower Engadine, was closed to traffic on that day. But
a man with whom I was acquainted, called Anton Broher
(nicknamed the " Schaufel-Bauer " or " Knave of
Spades," because of his black bushy beard), had started
for the pass before this fact was generaUy known. Just
before noon an avalanche caught him at a spot where
avalanches rarely, if ever, fall, within a short distance of
the inn at Tschuggen. An eye-witness saw him carried
by the blast, together with his horse and sledge, 200 yards
in the air across the mountain stream. The snow which
followed buried him. He was subsequently dug out
1 I quote this sentence from the Davoser Wochmblatt of March 7,
1888 : " In Misox hat der Luftdruck einer Lawine, die unmittelbar
neben dem Dorfe niederging, an einer ganzen Anzahl von Hausern
die Wande eingedruckt." Misox, or Mesocco, is the chief place in
the valley of that name on the Italian side of the San Bernardino-
60

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
dead, with his horse dead, and the sledge beside him.
The harness had been blown to ribbons in the air, for
nothing could be found of it except the head-piece on
the horse's neck.
I was curious to survey the spot where this had hap
pened. Accordingly, when the state of the road per
mitted, I proceeded to the scene of action. Avalanches
had fallen all along the opposite side of the vaUey in a
continuous line, blocking up the river. The snow-banks
over which I crawled were strewn with branches of cembra
whirled across the ravine by the Lawinen-Dunst, and
with boughs, twigs, debris of all sorts, torn from the
larches under which I passed. In some places there was
quite a heap of firewood brought together, and not a
tree appeared uninjured. I extricated the leader of a
fine young spruce, about eight feet long, from a snow
drift, and could see the broken stem from which it had
been wrenched, across the water, in a direct line, at the
distance of at least a thousand feet. The blast of the
avalanches seemed to have exerted a sweeping upward
force upon our side of the valley, as though, descending
from the other side, it had been thwarted and compeUed
to ascend for want of space. The boughs from the torn
trees were lifted into the snow at some height above us,
and their cleavage showed that the wrench had come
from below. When I reached the avalanche which
carried Anton Broher across the water and killed him,
I was astonished by its smaUness and by the space he
had traversed in the air. Yet there was the hole upon
the other side, close to the stream, out of which his
corpse, with horse and sledge, had been excavated.
Thanks to the prudence of our forefathers, vUlages are
rarely placed in peril from avalanches. If we could read
into the prehistoric annals of the Canton, it would be
61

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
found, I think, that long before the Romans came here
with their conquering legions, the safest sites for human
habitation had been already selected and occupied through
several centuries. Yet the elements are not to be de
pended on, and a few cases have occurred this winter in
which whole communities have been exposed to the direst
danger. I wiU select one instance as a specimen. Selma
is a village of the Calancathal, which diverges, not far
above BeUinzona, from the main valley of Mesocco to
the north-west. On February 26 three avalanches de
scended on this spot. The largest fell at seven in the
morning. The inhabitants of the opposite village, Lan-
darenca, who had better opportunities for observing
changes in the snow upon the heights above Selma, saw
that a catastrophe was about to happen. They rang a
tocsin on their church beUs which alarmed the folk of
Selma. Rushing out of their houses, these poor people
were deafened with the roar of the descending snow mass.
It swept onward, ploughing up their woods, gathering in
volume and in speed, untU it broke upon the solid build
ing of their church. This bore the brunt of the attack
and was demohshed. But it acted hke a breakwater.
The avalanche, arrested in its course, yet not brought
to quiescence, surged round the church and poured into
the viUage. Houses were buried and partly shattered.
On reckoning their numbers the escaped villagers per
ceived that four persons were missing — three women and
an old man of eighty. One woman was subsequently
discovered ahve behind the stove of her shattered kitchen.
A second was buried in a stable and extricated ahve. A
third had also taken refuge in a stable, whence she was
dug out. The old man remained in bed with the snow
pUed high above him. He wondered that the night
lasted so long, and was astonished when the rescue party
62

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
came and hauled him through a window out upon a
tunnel they had excavated to his dwelling.1
The Calancathal, in which this happened, suffered
severely later in the spring. On March 31 eight great
avalanches swept at once into it from both sides, burying
houses and stables. The telegraph announcing this
catastrophe ran as foUows : — " Calancathal is one huge
avalanche."2 It is worthy of observation that Schlag-Lawinen are
comparatively slow in movement, and give intimations
of their coming. This accounts for the fact that, whUe
great damage is done to buUdings, human lives are rarely
sacrificed in considerable numbers. Fetan, in the Lower
Engadine (between Schuls and Siiss), is an upland viUage,
which has suffered crueUy from both fire and snow ; and
its history may be worth recording.3 In the year 1682
a great avalanche swept over it. Six persons were kUled,
but the rest of the vUlagers, expecting some such catas
trophe, had abandoned their houses. In one dweUing
nothing was left standing but the living-room and one
bedroom. These, however, contained the mother of the
family and all her children, who escaped unhurt. In
1720 an avalanche demohshed fifteen houses at one
swoop. In one of them a party of twenty-six young
men and women were assembled. They were aU buried
in the snow, and only tliree survived. Altogether thirty-
six persons perished at that time, of whom thirty-two
were consigned to a common grave upon the 1 1th of Feb
ruary. In 1812 a simUar catastrophe occurred, destroy
ing houses and stables. But on this occasion the inhabi
tants had been forewarned and left the village. A curious
story is told about the avalanche of 1812. One of the
1 See Freier Shatter, March 10, 1888.
2 Ibid., April 1. 3 Ibid., March 6.
63

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
folk of Fetan, after abandoning his homestead to its fate,
remembered that he had forgotten to bring away his
Bible. The man was named Nuot Cla, or vulgarly Nuot
Sar Chasper. In the teeth of the impending danger,
through the dark night, he waded back across the snow
drifts, and saved the precious volume. Nearly the whole
of Fetan was consumed by a conflagration on Septem
ber 23, 1885, and this year it has again been devastated
by avalanches. Yet the people stick to their old site,
rebuilding their dwelhngs which the elements destroy.
It would be easy to multiply detaUs of this kind. The
annals of Davos, where I am writing, abound in striking
records of the avalanches of past years. I wiU confine
myself to a single extract from one of the local chronicles,
which, though it has the air of legend, may weU be
founded on a real historical event. There was a family
living at Ob-Laret, beyond Wolfgang, on the road to
Klosters, in a wooden chalet, which was entirely sub
merged by snow and avalanche. They could not extri
cate themselves with all their toU, and soon consumed
the provisions which the house contained. Famine stared
them in the face. The mother of the family, in this dire
contingency, decided that one member should be sacri
ficed for the benefit of aU. But first she brought her
children together in prayer, and then drew lots. The lot
feU upon a little girl, who knelt down and declared her
willingness to yield her life up, when suddenly a loud
noise in the chimney was heard, and a chamois came
tumbhng down into their midst. This animal removed
the necessity of human sacrifice, provided an immediate
supply of food, and indicated a way out into the open
air.

64

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche

in
I cannot do better than continue these observations
with some account of my personal experiences upon the
mountain roads. With this object in view, it will be
weU to describe the mode of traveUing in use here. The
snow-tracks which cross the higher passes are very
narrow ; and for this reason httle low open sledges
drawn by one horse are commonly employed. The
sledge is a box, shaped somewhat like a car in a merry-
go-round, into which a pair of traveUers are shut by
means of a wooden frame or lid moving up and down
on hinges. This hd rises to the breast of a seated person,
and protects his legs from falling snow. The upper part
of his body is exposed. When the sledge upsets, which
is not unfrequently the case, the whole falls quietly upon
one side, and discharges its contents. The wooden frame
or lid, being movable upon its hinges, enables a man to
disengage himself without difficulty. The driver stands
upon a ledge behind, passing the reins between the
shoulders of the passengers. There are no springs to
the vehicle, which bumps and thumps solidly in the
troughs of the road, dispelling aU illusions as to the
facUe motion of a sledge. If it is needful to pass another
vehicle, the horse plunges up to his beUy in soft snow
upon one side, then struggles furiously, gains his feet,
and lifts the sledge with quick spasmodic effort to the
beaten track again. These sledges carry no luggage. A
second horse is used, who foUows close behind, and draws
a truck on runners laden with all kinds of baggage. He
has no driver ; and the result is that these luggage-
sledges frequently upset. It is always safest to travel
with the post in winter, because the horses know each
65 e

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
yard of the road from one stage to another. But a
nervous traveller may even thus be exposed to trials
of his courage : for economy makes the postmaster pro
vide the smallest possible number of postiUions, and pas
sengers are sometimes sent across a mountain in a sledge
without a driver, foUowing the sledge in front. I once
crossed the Julier in a dark night of January, without a
postillion and without any reins to guide the horse by.
My reason told me that the beast knew his business
better than I did. But, none the less, I felt forlornly
helpless when he was floundering about in depths of snow
I could not reahse. It is always best to take things
as they come, however ; and I comforted myself by
reflecting that even an Enghshman is a parcel
which post-masters are bound to dehver safely at its
destination. Some of the pleasantest days of my hfe have been
spent in these post-sledges on the passes of Graubiinden.
The glory of unclouded sunhght, the grimness of storm,
and the mystery of midnight among the peaks of Albula,
Fluela, Julier, Bernina, Maloja, Spliigen, Bernhardin, are
known to me through them. They are not luxurious ;
but I can recommend them with authority in preference
to the stuffy top-heavy closed carriages on runners which
the inexperience of foreigners is now bringing into fashion.
Though I have been out in very bad weather in these
open sledges I never took any harm. The foUowing notes
of a day's journey on March 13, 1888, show that the
risk of catching cold may be considerable ; yet I would
back myself to catch cold in a German or Swiss raUway-
carriage more easily at the same season of the year. " I
drove in an open sledge from Landquart to Davos, about
nine hours, while it snowed incessantly, thick wet snow,
very soft and sweet to breathe in, lovely on the woods
66

SnoWj Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
of beech and pine, fantastic on the blue-green frozen
cataracts. A dreamy day of long grey pearly distances,
snow-laden orchards, hamlets slumbering in snow, and
taU fir forests drooping their snow-laden branches over
me. My outer garments were soaking wet ; fur cap and
hair too. When we reached Laret these wet things began
to freeze. When we reached Wolfgang a mighty blast
tore snow from the meadows and whirled it round us,
chiUing me to the marrow. When we arrived at Davos-
Dorfli I was harnessed in solid maU of ice, and my fore
head bristled with icicles."
In the winter of 1887-88 I undertook many short
journeys with the view of inspecting the unusual pheno
mena of avalanches. The most interesting of these was
the last, when I left Davos with one of my daughters for
Italy by the routes of Landwasser, Juher, and Maloja.
We set off at 6 a.m., under a clear frosty sky, upon
AprU 5. Owing to Fohn-wind and constant traffic the
snow-road was broken into deep ruts and holes, which
made our sledges leap, jump, bump, buck, lurch, and
thud in ways quite indescribable to those who have not
experienced the process. The luggage-sledge behind up
set three times in the course of the first five mUes. The
great avalanche at Glarus we passed by means of the
gallery which I have described above,1 and were soon
engaged in the dreary gorges of the Ziige. This name
has been given to the narrow and precipitous ravine
through which the Landwasser goes thundering to join
the Albula and Rhine, because on either hand, for the
distance of about two mUes, its steep sides are swept by
avalanches. Zug is the local expression for the track
foUowed by an avalanche, and the ravine in question is
a continuous series of Ziige. I have seen nothing in the
1 Page 53.
67 e 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Alps which impressed me so strongly with the force —
the cruel blind force of nature — as the aspect of the
Ziige on that April morning. Avalanche upon avalanche
had been pouring down into the vaUey from 3000 feet
above. The stream was buried beneath Staub-Lawinen,
Schlag-Lawinen, Grund-Lawinen, to the depth of scores
of feet. Here and there the torrent burst with clamorous
roar from the jaws of one dark icy cavern only to plunge
again into the silence and the blackness of another yawn
ing mass of desolation. Millions of tons of snow, of up
rooted rocks, and of mangled forests were lying huddled
together, left to rot beneath the fretting influence of rain
or south winds, slowly losing dignity of outline and sub
stance in a blur of mottled, besmirched, pitted hideous-
ness. Here there was a tunnel in the chff, festooned
with frozen stalactites, and clogged with the debris of
ice dislodged by its own weight from the dripping roof.
There the waUs of marble snow, where excavation had
been made in avalanches, rose to a height of twenty feet
above our heads. Next came a horrid Grund-Lawine,
filthy, cynical, with its wreck of stones and rubble,
gnawed stems, shattered parapets, and snapped telegraph-
posts. Over these we had to crawl as weU as we could ;
the horses could only just contrive to get across the
ridged deluge, climbing and descending, climbing and
descending, on narrow tracks delved by the road-makers.
These tracks are encumbered with enormous blocks of
limestone and round boulders, which faU independently
of avalanches from the scars left by avalanches on the
heights above. And always rocks roUing in the ravines
with a sullen roar ; always, the snow-slips shifting on the
cliffs around us ; always, from time to time, the suUen
clamour of the maddened torrent as it leapt from one
black cavern to another. There are several tunnels
68

PIZ JULIER FROM THE HOSPICE.

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
pierced in the hving rock, and just before the mouth of
the last of these, a Grund-Lawine had faUen two hours
earlier. It had carried away the road and parapets,
depositing a sharply-inclined slope of snow and dirty
debris in their place. This we clambered over as well
as we could, on foot. The horses, helped by their brawny
drivers, had great difficulty in dragging the sledges across
its uneven treacherous slope, which extended in a straight
line to the stream-bed twenty yards below. The whole
ravine left a sad and horrifying impression of mere ruin
on the mind — nature-forces spending themselves in
waste, acting now as they have acted for past miUions
of years, bhndly clashing together, apparently with no
result except destruction, certainly with no regard for
man's convenience, and stiU more certainly with serious
imperilment to human life. Yet we must not forget that
these deluges of snow have their beneficent aspect. By
relieving the upper regions of the Alps of their accumu
lated burdens, they prevent the snow of exceptional
winters from forming into nevees, which would sooner
or later settle down as glaciers, covering the central chains,
and altering the climate of the whole country.
I was glad to emerge from the Ziige and to gain those
larch woods on the way to Wiesen, from which a distant
and glorious prospect may be enjoyed of the pure moun
tain summits glittering in morning hght. To think that
those calm tracts of silver snow, so exquisitely moulded
into peaks and " finely-penciUed valleys " above their
sombre pine-woods, should be responsible for all the
havoc and the horror of the Ziige !
I shall not dweU upon the next stages of this day's
journey, which were performed in carriages ; for the snow
had melted on the post-road from Wiesen to Tiefenkasten
and half-way up the Julier. The evidences of damage
69

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
caused by avalanches were interesting, but need not be
recorded. It began to snow when we approached the
village of Schweiningen. Enormous flakes swirled lazily
and heavUy through still grey air. As I caught them
against the blackness of the pine woods, they looked like
a countless multitude of ApoUo butterflies. The flakes
were hardly less in size, and had the same clumsy, help
less flight. From this time forward snow fell more or
less continuously till the end of our long journey. Just
below Muhlen we crossed an avalanche, which had cut
its track out of a forest of young pines and larches. The
section through which we passed revealed on both sides
a compact mass of stems, sawn through to make the
road. There was more of solid wood than snow, and
the damage must have been mainly caused by the
Lawinen-Dunst .
At Muhlen we had to take an open sledge again.
Here, as the day was drawing to its close, I doubted
whether it was prudent to fare forward in the whirling
snow. But there is fascination in completing journeys
once begun ; besides, we wished to cross the Juher before
the snow could mound us up and stop our going. So
we called fresh horses, and went forth into the twilight.
The evening slowly dwindled, while we jolted, lunging
and lurching along the troughed and deeply-cloven road
to StaUa. Imagination quails before those bumps and
jumps. They threw the horse upon his knees, ourselves
upon our faces in the sledge, and the driver from his
stand behind it. At StaUa there was the opportunity
again of resting for the night. But the same impulse
swayed us now as before at Muhlen. Our spirits rose,
while the sleet feU thickly and the wind waUed grimly,
at the thought of threading those mysterious snow-ways
of the pass in darkness. Onward, then, we drove,
70

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
silencing the postiUion, who more than recommended
the wisdom of a halt. Night closed round, and up we
travelled for two hours, at a foot's pace, turning corners
which we could not see or feel, exploring trackless wastes
of drift, with stinging snow-shafts on our faces. The
Hospiz was reached at last ; and here we had a third
chance of suspending our journey and resting for the
night. Imagine a hut of rough-hewn stone, crowded
with burly carters, swarming out to greet us by the
light of one dim lantern. Over the roof of the hovel
surged the mounded snow, and curved itself in billowy
lines of beauty — like the breasts, I thought, of Amphi-
trite's nymphs, as Pheidias might have moulded them —
above those granite eaves. The carters emerged from a
cellar, as it seemed, chmbing up six feet of snow by
steps cut out to reach the level of the road. As they
stood in the doorway, stalwart feUows clad in shaggy
serge, hke bears, the snow-wreaths curhng from the
rafters touched their hairy heads. I had no adverse
mind to staying there and fraternizing with these com
rades through a winter's night. Nor did I fear for my
daughter's comfort. I knew that she would be weU ;
our beds, though cold, would certainly be dry. Winter
on the tops of mountains has this merit, that damp can
find no place there. And the hearts of mountaineers,
beneath their husk of roughness, are the hearts of gentle
men. But the impulse to fare forward, the dream-like
sense of something to be bhndly done, the more practical
fear that we might be snowed up for days in this frost-
bound " cave of care," bade me order out fresh horses.
They were ready at my caU, for we were travelling extra-
post, and the telegraph-wires, though drowned in snow,
discharge their messages. I hked the new postilhon. I
did not fancy the horse which was harnessed to our
71

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
sledge. He was a taU, lean chestnut ; and chestnuts,
as I know by experience, are apt to feel impatient if
they get embarrassed in deep snow. As the sequel
proved, I made a false shot ; for this chestnut showed
himself up to every trick and turning in the road we had
to foUow. Another horse was yoked to the luggage-
sledge behind us, then left to do as best he could, with
out a driver — such is the custom on these mountains.
He did his best by following the beast in front. I cared
little about luggage at that moment ; what I wanted was
to arrive at Silvaplana safely with my daughter.
The descent from the Hospiz was grimly solemn and
impressive. Passing from the friendly light of that one
stable-lantern, we now entered the dim obscurity of
dreamland — a mist of whirling snowflakes, driven on
ward by the wind which grew in violence. It is never
whoUy dark upon the snow ; but the lustreless paUor of
the untracked wUderness, fading off on every side into
formless haze, and the complete effacement of aU objects
to which the sight is accustomed in these regions, are
peculiarly trying to eyes and nerves. Here and there
we could perceive the tops of black stakes and telegraph-
posts emerging from the undulating drift. Here and
there for considerable intervals they were completely
hidden. As these posts average thirty feet in height,
some conception of the snow-depth may be formed.
There was also, at times, a faint suggestion of impending
crags and masses of black rock on this hand or on that.
Like the hulls of vessels seen through fog at sea, they
swam into sight and shrank out of it again phantasmaUy.
Nothing more was visible ; nothing on which the sense
of sight could seize for comfort and support. The track
was obliterated, buried in fresh-faUen snow and storm-
drift. Everything seemed changing, shifting, yielding to
72

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
the uniformity of elemental treacherousness. The winter
road upon the Julier plunges straight downward, cutting
across the windings of the summer post-road, which hes
with all its bridges, barricades, and parapets five fathoms
deep below. At one spot, where absolutely nothing
appeared to indicate the existence of a track, the postilhon
muttered in our ears, " Now we must trust to the horse ;
if he misses, it is over with us — es ist mit uns um." The
reins were laid upon the chestnut's shoulders, and he
succeeded in feehng, scenting out the way. Pausing,
sounding at each step with his fore feet, putting his nose
down to smell, sometimes hardly stirring, sometimes
breaking into a trot for a few seconds, then coming to a
sudden halt again, then moving cautiously as though in
doubt, he went with interruptions forward. The sledge-
beUs had been left behind at the Hospiz for fear of
avalanches ; their tinkling or the crack of a whip suffices
in such weather to dislodge a snow-shp. The other horse
with the baggage-sledge foUowed behind, attending
eagerly to every movement of his comrade. And so we
passed silently, glidingly, mysteriously downward into
the gulf of utter gloom, without making the least sound.
The only noise we heard was the eldritch shrieking of
the wind, and a horrible seolian music from the telegraph-
wires close at our ears. We could touch these wires with
our fingers when they were not buried in snow, and they
thrUled with a sharp metaUic shudder like the voices of
banshees or lost waihng women, uttering shrUl threats
and curses, murmuring their drowsy runes of doom.
Sometimes we ascended avalanches, and there there was
blank vacancy and utter silence — every object huddled
in ruin, and the path smoothed out by softly-curving
wreaths. The horse was up to his beUy in unwrinkled
drifts. Only through changes of movement in the sledge
73

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
did we know that we were climbing steeply up or plung
ing perilously down. On the dizzy top of one of these
avalanches it happened that the clouds above us broke,
and far aloft, in a sohtary space of sky, the Great Bear
swam into sight for a few moments. This httle starlight
was enough to reveal the desolation of the place, and the
yawning chasms on our right and left. I knew by ex
perience how narrow, how high-uplifted, is the thread
of traversable pathway in such passages. A false step
to this side or to that would plunge us into oceans of
soft smothering snow from which in darkness we could
not hope to extricate ourselves. Yet the two brave
horses kept the track. Ursa Major was swallowed up
in mist again. The wind rallied with fierce clutching
grasps, while we cautiously descended from the avalanche
and resumed what must have been the winter road,
although we could not see or feel it. Just then cembras
began to show their dark masses on the chffs, and some
thing more sombre even than the night loomed far ahead
before us. The cembras told me that we were nearing
Silvaplana, and the obscurity in front must surely be
the bulk of the Bernina group beyond the Engadine.
Courage ! We shaU soon be under shelter ! But, even
as I said these words, the whirlwind scooped the snow
again in bhnding drifts around us, and the telegraph-
banshees shrieked with redoubled spitefulness : " Come
away, come away to us ! Come and be buried as we
have been ! Come and be damned in the prisons of frost
with us ! The wind that makes us croon our weird song
shaU wind the snow-wreaths over you !" That was not
to be our destiny, however ; for, after jolting through
another avalanche, the excavated walls of which touched
our sledges on each hand, we made a few sharp turns,
saw lights ahead, and came lurching into the little street
74

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
of Silvaplana opposite the hospitable " Wilde Mann."
We had been driving for fourteen hours over every con
ceivable kind of road — rough, broken, precipitous, track
less — and we were glad enough to get a late supper and
a warm bed. In this account of a night passage of the
Juher I have not spoken about cold or exposure to
weather. Indeed, we did not think about these things,
nor did we suffer from them. Of course we were snowed
over, and almost throttled sometimes by the wind. But
cold is little felt on mountain passes when the air is dry
and the traveller wears proper clothing.
The storm howled on all night, but died away before
the morning. Long ere the sun had risen on the Enga
dine, his glorious rays were scattering clouds and silver
ing mists above the glaciers of Bernina. They fled hke
smoke, or formed themselves in squadrons, which went
slowly rolhng down the ridges of the hills before a waken
ing breeze which blew from Italy. That day's journey
was accomplished in briUiant light ; and the huge ava
lanches we had to traverse — eleven of them between
SUvaplana and Maloja, not counting minor snow-shps —
were as white and glittering as alabaster. These were
either Staub-Lawinen which had faUen in February, or
Schlag-Lawinen brought down by the warm weather of
the last week. At Maloja the extent of the winter snow
fall made itself very obvious. Large houses and stables
were literally buried ; the mass of snow upon their roofs
was connected in a long even line with the snow upon
the meadows, while deep gaUeries had been cut out for
access to the doors or windows. The sudden drop from
Maloja's mountain parapet into an Italian vaUey is always
impressive. To-day it was remarkably so ; for the hang
ing woods and precipices, along which the road winds by
a series of cleverly engineered zigzags, were encumbered
75

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
with soft curving, beautifuUy moulded snow — fold over
fold ; hp stretching down to lip ; so heavy, so voluminous,
so airily suspended, that they seemed to keep their balance
by a miracle. Indeed, in several places the forest had
been cut by avalanches. But the grandest sight was just
above Casaccia. On the night of March 27 two huge
Schlag-Lawinen feU from different quarters in the neigh
bourhood of this viUage ; and on the night of the 28th
a third descended from the Canaletta gorge, and stormed
around the ruined church of San Gaudenzio. AU these
were visible as we approached Casaccia ; and the last of
them had to be traversed at its greatest breadth. It
was here that I studied a newly-fallen Schlag-Lawine in
its most picturesque form and in a highly-romantic posi
tion.1 Travellers by the Maloja will certainly remember
the deserted church of San Gaudenzio, and the dehcate
tracery of its windows, on their right hand coming from
the Engadine. It has escaped from total destruction by
a miracle. Through a fortunate deflection of the ava
lanche the main stream, with its burden of trees and
stones, swept past the building. Yet the snow is piled
so high around it that a man can step from the level of
the avalanche on to its highest waU, while its single door
is mounded up.2 Rarely have I contemplated anything
of beauty more fairy-hke and fantastic than this Schlag-
Lawine, white and luminous beneath the cheerful sun
beams, curling round the grey ruin, and stretching long
firths and pine-plumed pinnacles into the vaUey !
The winter is over and gone. Among the cities of
Italy, upon the lagoons of Venice, the memory of those
grey months of snow and storm has melted like a dream
of midnight. MeanwhUe the same forces which un-
1 See above, page 49.
2 See letter from Bergell to Freier Bhatier, April 11, 1888.
76

THE PIZ BERNINA AND THE MORTERATCH
GLACIER.

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Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
leashed the avalanches, and sent them thundering down
their paths of ruin, have been slowly but surely con
suming their frail substance. Warm wind, the Schnee-
fresser, and April rains, have made them vanish into
dew. Where the Adige sweeps toward the sea at Bron-
dolo, where swoUen Brenta licks Bassano's wooden
bridge, perhaps we pause to think one moment of our
friends, the Staub-Lawine, Schlag-Lawine, Grund-Lawine,
Schnee-Rutsch. This, then, this flood of water, racing
to the ocean, is what they have become !
Returning to the Alps in summer, we look for them
wellnigh in vain. Here and there, like the carcase of a
whale rotting upon the sea-shore, some mighty but
diminished monster may stiU be seen, with the havoc
it has wrought, the splintered pines, rocks, displumed
larches, battered alders, strewn around it. Perhaps we
cross a desolate high pass where winter dweUs rebeUious
in unwUlingness to quit his hold on earth. The torrent
is bridged over there with snow, and heavy masses clog
the gullies. On June 8, in this same year, I traversed
the Fluela, and had an hour in open sledges at the top.
Thus, after nine weeks' wandering in paradise, I re
entered my mountain home by the same way as out I
went in AprU.
A dead avalanche upon an upland hUlside is an almost
pathetic spectacle. It has furrowed its way through the
pine wood, and grooved a track of desolation in the vaUey.
The stream is choked with its compact incumbency of
snow. Birch-trees and forlorn fir branches nod upon its
broad, dusky-white back, bending leafless boughs, or
tossing draggled plumes in drear disarray. AU round
and far below, the meadows smile with flowers and
waving grasses. Yet here at least, in the midst of
spring, hes winter ! Then, as the June sun rises day by
77

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
day with stronger beams, the avalanche decays and
trickles into rivulets. You see little flowers thrusting
their jeweUed heads from the brown fringe of withered
sward around its frozen borders. First come the hlac
beUs of soldaneUa, and crocuses hke white sheUs on some
sea-shore of romance. Each successive day brings a new
fringe of blossoms round the retreating snow, and each
evening sees them pass away into green grasses. So brief
is the bloom-time of the earhest flowers ; so active is the
life of earth in summer ! Then globed ranunculus and
pale anemone, geranium and pearl-white lUy, gentians
with their enameUed cups of peacock blue, pink prim
roses and creamy butterworts, start in rainbow circles
from the fresh young sward. Soon, aU too soon, the taU
grass gains upon these vernal flowers. The mowers with
their scythes ascend the Alp, and before July is over we
have to wait for winter, when the avalanche wiU surely
fall again. J. A. S.

NOTES

The preceding article was written in June, 1888. Since then
an official report has been pubhshed of the damage inflicted
on the Canton by avalanches during the winter of 1887-88.
Six hundred avalanches are included in this estimate ; but
many thousands are not reckoned, because they feU in places
where no injury to hfe or property had to be considered.
Twenty men, it seems, were involved. Of these, seven
were extricated ahve, and thirteen perished.
The injury to hve stock was small : one horse, two cows,
eight sheep, nine goats, and a swarm of bees.
The number of buildings wrecked was as foUows : — Four
chapels, fifteen dwelling-houses, one hundred and seventeen
78

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
large stables, eighteen hay-barns, thirteen huts upon the
Alpine pastures, two flour-mills, two saw-mills, one distiUery,
and ten wooden bridges.
The total loss to the Canton, including pubhc and private
property, amounted to £14,300 in round figures. It is impos
sible, however, to state with accuracy the value of the forests
destroyed.

II
Avalanches are unhke glaciers in this respect, that they
offer none of the problems which streams of ice in motion
have presented to the scientific observer.
Given certain conditions of weather, certain accumulations
of snow on the higher levels of the mountain ranges, and
certain disturbing causes, the simple force of gravity is
sufficient to account for the descent of these formidable
torrents. The disturbing cause may be either violent wind acting
upon unwieldy masses of suspended snow ; or rain soddening
similar masses, and adding to their weight and solidity ; or
the passage of animals across ledges and wreaths whence snow
is easily detached ; or even the vibrations of a man's voice,
a horse-beU, or a carter's whip. It may, again, be the spon
taneous subsidence of a sheet of snow too cumbrous to support
itself upon a steep declivity.
The smaU amount of snow dislodged in the first instance
by any one of these causes sets an avalanche in motion. In
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the snow slides a httle
distance, and then is arrested by some inequality in the
ground. But if circumstances are favourable to its advance,
it accumulates more and more material from the surround
ing slopes, acquires momentum, and eventually rushes for
ward with irresistible force. In order to generate an over
whelming avalanche, dangerous to whole viUages and forests,
the original snow-shp must have occurred at a considerable
distance, measured by thousands of feet, and must have
79

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
been so situated as to draw a large area of snow-field into
motion. Roughly speaking, then, aU avalanches, however distin
guished by specific names, originate in snow-shps, which,
unless they are arrested near the source, convulse a large
portion of their neighbourhood, and discharge themselves
with fatal fury on the valley.

Ill
Several artificial means have been tried for securing hfe,
traffic, and property against avalanches.
We have seen that the mischief begins high up on the bare
chffs and slopes above the forests. The passing of a chamois,
the haUoo of a hunter, the crack of a postillion's whip, is
sufficient to set snow enough going there to overwhelm a
viUage. Measures are not usuaUy taken at the altitude where
avalanches originate.
The first and most important line of defence is the forest
itself ; and for this reason the forest laws of Switzerland are
very severe. A man is not aUowed to feU a tree in his own
wood without the forester's consent. Everything is done
to preserve the natural rampart afforded by a mass of
pines. In the second place, where avalanches descend regularly
every year, stone gaUeries are built, or tunnels are mined out
of the sohd rock to protect roads. We have examples of these
gaUeries and tunnels in the Ziige, near Davos.
Scientific engineers are eager to change these plans of
defence. They beheve that the root of the mischief ought
to be attacked. In places where avalanches are expected,
at the tops of the Ziige, they recommend the building of
terraces and dwarf-waUs, so as to arrest the earhest snow-
shp. Lower down, in the forest zone, piles should be driven
into the ground, and fenced with wattling. If these pre-
80

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
cautions were taken, it is beheved that the avalanche would
be arrested at its commencement and impeded in its
descent. Fifty or sixty weU-known avalanche tracks have been
successfuUy treated by these means in Switzerland. J. A. S.

IV
The foUowing letter describes our passage of the Juher
in storm at night. It was written upon the day after the
event : — Chiavestna, April 6, 1888.
Dearest L. — Yesterday was indeed " a trying day." As
I sit in this Itahan inn, with my windows wide open, and a
warm spring rain pattering down on the boys at play in the
piazza, I can scarcely beheve that the bumpy and exciting
events of our journey over the mountains into this land are
true. To begin with, then, the road from Davos to Wiesen
exceUed aU my powers of word-painting for atrociousness.
We were much delayed, as our luggage was upset three times,
entailing much skurrying, hoisting, and rearrangement on
each successive occasion. " Immer dieselbe Geschichte,"
remarked the postillion, grimly sarcastic, each time. And
how could it be otherwise, considering that the road was a
ploughed field and the luggage-horse had no driver ? We
changed to wheels before Wiesen, and continued on them to
Crapaneira, thence to Alveneu. At Alveneu the hepaticas
were bursting into bloom. Here we got into our extra-post,
and on to Tiefenkasten. At that place we lunched. The
weather, which had been fine before, was now rapidly turning
bad. The only horses which we could procure were three
which had just brought a party down from Muhlen. They
were consequently not of the freshest. Before we had got
far it had begun to rain. As we advanced up the pass the
rain turned to snow, and increased into a tremendous snow-
81 v

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
storm. I aUow that I often exaggerate, but indeed the flakes
were enormous this time. Father compared them to ApoUo
butterflies. They were not smaUer than that. The fresh
snow increased the badness of the road. Our great unwieldy
Sechspldtziger (or carriage made to hold six people) trailed
wearifully onward. The postiUion either could not, or else
would not, make his horses move at more than a foot's pace.
We crossed the remains of three great avalanches. They
had done tremendous damage to the young forest, tearing
up and snapping off masses of trees, which lay about the
tracks of the avalanches and across the vaUey, as though
to bear a hving record of the wicked strength of that fallen
snow. At Muhlen we changed to sledges, and decided to
push on again, as it was only four o'clock, and there seemed
to be no reason for staying there, especiaUy as no one even
warned us against proceeding.
From Muhlen to Stalla the road was so ghastly in its ditches
and bumps that one forgot the world could be smooth. We
found that standing upright in our sledge somewhat broke
the horror of the forward lurch. Added to this, the storm
grew thicker, and twilight crept imperceptibly over us. We
had an old weather-worn man for driver. He suddenly began
to upbraid us. "How dared you start over the pass," he
cried, " on such a night and at such an hour \ I cannot
promise that we shaU get over." It was impossible to argue.
His was one of those domineering spirits. Whatever I sug
gested he saw reason to contradict, even if I said the very
same things as he had said himself. He finaUy declared that
our last chance was to sleep at the Hospiz. " Very well,
then," I roared ; for the wind roared too, and the driving
snow froze in ice across my lips ; also, he was deaf. " It is
not very weU ; it is quite impossible," he retorted, fiercely.
" With this weather you will be snowed up. There you will
remain ! You will never get down !" — " Then go on while
it is yet possible." — " I cannot go on ; I do not know the
pass weU. I have no boots." This was a final stroke.
Father was mute, partly because of the storm, and partly
82

PIZ JULIER AND PIZ ALBANA IN WINTER.

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1PH.

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
because conversation of this sort carried on in sheer despair
leads to nothing. So, finaUy, we aU relapsed into deadly
silence. The almost invisible track wound grandly up over
such masses of snow that one became utterly confused.
Mighty avalanches of pure white stood out hke towers into
the twilight at times, and then were lost. Still we wound on.
But what have been perhaps the most dangerous minutes
of my hfe were yet to come. It is a fine thing to know that
one has gone through a thing so grand in one's hfe that one
cannot forget it ; and such a thing, I reaUy think, was this.
Our horses were good, and finaUy the Hospiz loomed grey and
duU far above us. This Hospiz, more than most Swiss
Hospizes, can be fitly described as a " cave of care." With
frozen snow wheeling round its walls in eddies, its low roof
draped in icicles, which fell to meet the drifts upon the ground,
it could scarcely have struck an outsider as being attractive.
To us at that minute it meant human hfe and comfort. From
its snow-buried door issued a crowd of interested and burly
men, aU talking, laughing, and aU hopeful ; amongst them a
cheerful postiUion. Our tormentor now threw the reins gladly
over to this one, who guaranteed to take us down the pass.
Hope had at last returned to us, and in our foUy we again
started into the night and the storir . It is this drive that I
never can forget. There was so much fresh snow that the
road (if indeed there was any) had quite disappeared. The
horse found his way without any help, the luggage-horse fol
lowing all by himself. The postiUion whispered into my ear :
" One false step — und es ist um mit uns /" The winter road
goes quite perpendicular and straight down over the wUder-
ness of eternal snows. As we crouched forward, I could
stretch my arm forth over the telegraph-wires, and the poles,
you know, are about thirty feet high, and this was sheer
depth of snow, not avalanche. There was utter sohtude and
silence. Sometimes the wind rose behind us, and came
hurrying through the telegraph-wires, uttering wild screams
as though phantom women were racing at our backs. Not
a bell on the horses for fear of avalanches, and a driving snow
83 F 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
falling over aU. Once, when something was wrong with the
harness, and we had to stop a second or two, I looked up into
the sky. The wind had torn the clouds apart, and there, in
a bit of black sky, aU the stars of the Great Bear were shining
quite placidly and still. They were soon lost in the storm,
however, and we continued our descent. One tremendous
avalanche choked the whole vaUey at one point, and this we
had to cross. When at last we saw the broad stretch of the
Engadine and its scattered lights, it seemed an unreal and
a strange thing. I have never hardly felt as tired as I did
when I got out of the sledge at Silvaplana. " What a good
thing great-auntie isn't with us," as our smaU cousin said
on that dreary walk across the sun-baked moor. Perhaps
those were my thoughts about my family, if indeed I thought
at aU; but I was so stupid that I found the old landlady
pulling me along by one arm, whilst telhng her daughter to
take the other.
WeU, it was all a splendid experience. We both enjoyed
it, and I never felt frightened once, though I may have felt
disheartened sometimes. We were in bed by ten, and up
to-day at five again, and off in the post across the Maloja.
It was a beautiful morning at starting, and such a grand
drive ! bumpy, but peaceful, after our previous experience.
We crossed eleven real big avalanches after Silvaplana, and
had two upsets of the luggage-cart — otherwise quiet. The
snow round Maloja hes a great depth, the houses are buried
up to their roofs, and it is also very deep on the Stutze to
Casaccia. The most magnificent avalanche I ever saw was
here. It lay hke a large blue glacier fuU of sad old trees
which had lived their quiet hves up there on the mountain
side for ages, and were now caught and carried off to wither
in this terrific fiend's embrace.
WeU — you wUl now be saying, hke Mr. Cosse and the
mesembryanthemums, " We cannot bear avalanches." So I
wiU write no more upon them.
I have been out and seen the spring. Here in Chiavenna
the snow-flakes grow in millions, all up and down the hill-
84

Snow, Frost, Storm, and Avalanche
sides, below the chestnut-trees, and along the mossy banks
of httle running streams in meadows. There are crocuses,
hepaticas, cowshps, and a wealth of primulas. The earth is
warm and brown and moist. It is a joy to kneel upon it and
to snuff up the dehcious scent of growing things. The grass
is already green down here in Italy. Snows and frosts and
sledges seem hundreds of miles away. M. S.

85

CHIAVENNA IN APRIL
The majority of people who winter in the High Alps do
so at present on account of health — their own health or
that of relatives in whom they are interested.
One of their chief difficulties at the termination of the
winter season is to know where and how to pass the early
spring. Human nature cannot endure more than six or
seven months of snow ; and there are few men or women,
except, perhaps, incipient lovers, who do not want a
change of hotel society after so long a period.
When the days lengthen, when the sun rises higher in
the heavens, and our white-sheeted vaUeys grow mono
tonous, and the softer south winds whisper in the after
noon, folk begin to reflect that flowers are blossoming,
and birds singing, and peach-trees clothing their bare
boughs with crimson, in happier regions not so far away.
How easy it would be to get to Italy, we cry ! One day
wUl carry us outside this dream-world of dead snows into
lands thrilling and budding with newly-awakened life.
The usual thing is for the winter visitors to consult
their doctor in these circumstances, and to ask him where
they ought to go. They act rightly ; for the doctor judges
better than they can what is safe and unexceptionable
for their health-conditions. Yet the doctor himself is
under difficulties. He has not always enjoyed the op
portunity of hving in the chmates which his chents wish
86

Chiavenna in April

to visit. Not unfrequently he knows far less about them,
except on hearsay — that is, upon the statements and
statistics furnished by medical papers and self-styled
authorities — than many of his patients do, who have
traveUed through those countries, or have dwelt there
for their pastime or instruction.
It foUows, therefore, that the doctors in these Alpine
health resorts recommend only what they can conscienti
ously advise — some place they are acquainted with, some
place upon the way to England, some place where the
food is tolerably good, some place where the misceUaneous
inquirers may be safely housed under the supervision of
their medical adviser.
I have written these words by way of preface to a
description of Chiavenna in the spring. It is a resort
which seems to me unreasonably neglected ; for the
advantages it offers are manifold. The climate is not
so damp and languid as that of the Italian Lakes, nor
so bleak as that of the Rhine valley. Proximity to the
Gothard railway renders it a first stage on the road to
most lands. Chiavenna is almost at our doors. But one
may go farther and fare worse in AprU.
Chiavenna is a little Italian town enclosed by romantic
mountains, which soar into towers and spires and pyramids
above it. Yet the place is so situated at the meeting-
point of two main vaUeys (the Spliigen Pass and Val
Bregaglia) that southwards the prospect expands allur
ingly toward the Lake of Como and the plain of Lom-
bardy. In Chiavenna we have always an open vista
enticing us to Italy ; always the majestic precipices over
head, wreathed with leaden or silver or golden mists,
shooting their sharp needles into the blue of heaven, beck
oning to us from the Alpine regions we have left behind.
A torrent of the purest water flows through the town :
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
so pure, if the truth must be told, that it serves one or
more breweries, and makes the beer of Chiavenna widely
celebrated. This may or may not be an attraction to
visitors. But I can assure them that the beer is sound.
There is a spacious hotel to pass the time and sleep in ;
an old posting-house, formerly a palace, now transformed
to suit modern requirements, with an attentive host, who
takes pride in his kitchen and his ceUar and the comfort
of his guests. I need not add that this is the Hotel Con-
radi, and that Herr Weber keeps it.
I have hved much in Italy, and have traversed that
enchanted land of nature and the arts down from its
Alpine barriers to the sea wliich beats about the promon
tory of SicUian LUybaeum. But I have found in all my
wanderings no better frontispiece to the long series of
Itahan pictures than this of Chiavenna — no place in
which one leaps so suddenly from north to south, from
the mystery of the mountains into the Itahan charm.
Crossing Maloja, we leave the stony hUls which gather
fountain-heads for Rhine and Danube and Adige and
Po. We ghde insensibly into the Itahan garden. When
we reach it, there are vine trellises and almond orchards,
peach-trees laden with bloom or fruit, big-bellied gourds
asleep on sunny stones, taciturn cypresses near dweUings
built for secrecy and love, taU ben-towers reaching to
the skies among the voiceless habitations of the dead,
bridges entwined with creeping weeds through which the
deep-tongued torrents clamour, castles on topphng rocks
recalling deeds of antique story. The whole of Italy, to
one who knows Italy weU, is suggested in epitome here.
And Chiavenna has the additional attraction of com
bining with this Itahan magic something of Alpine purity
and freshness. Everywhere come streamlets pouring
down from snows in spring. The black rocks are fringed
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Chiavenna in April

with rhododendron, tufted with crimson primulas and
heaths, embossed with budding saxifrages. Under the
grey boles of Spanish chestnut-trees the sward spreads
soft and green. This velvet lawn is starred with crocuses,
lilac and white ; and where transparent waters irrigate
the fields, one may wander for hours among dancing
beds of snow-flakes, raising their sheU-like blossoms from
frafl stalks above the grassy cushions whence they spring.
There is a ruin of old granitic rocks around you, the
spUth and waste of mountains shaken in past ages by
earth-splitting throes. But these have been mossed over,
smoothed by " the unimaginable touch of time," mel
lowed to sombre greys and glowing tones of purple.
Feathery birch-trees sprout from the chasms which divide
those monumental blocks. Fir-trees plume them. Rare
ferns nestle in their crevices. Blue hepaticas and deh
cate wood-sorrel shelter round them. Dark violets,
where the turf is moist and deep by overhanging waUs,
fiU the spring air with fragrance. And man may pass
from spot to spot, exploring and inquiring, finding no
end to his delightful rambles.
Nearly three centuries ago — that is to say, in the year
1618 — this fair land was visited by one of those terrible
catastrophes wliich make us mortals wonder whether we
are not the sport of some mahgnant destiny. At the
time of which I speak the httle town of Plurs, distant
less than three miles from Chiavenna, was a flourishing
commune, tenanted by perhaps about 1,200 persons.
During the evening of the 4th of September in that year,
a huge mass of mountain above Plurs detached itself
from the main body, and roUed down in rocks and dust
upon the town. Plurs was stoned to death, and 930 of
its inhabitants were buried in the ruins of the hiU to
which they formerly looked up for safeguard and pro-
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
tection. A contemporary chronicler, Fortunat Sprecher,
who was stationed in Chiavenna on this fatal day, relates
that the thunder of the faUing mountain reached his ears
like the explosion of a park of artlUery.
One of the pleasantest excursions from Chiavenna is
to a country-house which stands upon the outskirts of
the desolated town of Plurs. It is a villa, belonging to
the descendants of a gentle f amUy who had their principal
possessions in the ruined commune. You reach this
lonely dwelling by a path which leads through secular
chestnut-trees — grey-bearded giants of the forest, who
have survived a score of revolutions, and borne the
brunt of changeful seasons through at least four cen
turies of human life. Turfy are the ways beneath them,
and mossy the unmortared walls which close those
labyrinths of winding paths. In the autumn, when the
gnarled boughs shed their russet fohage, this journey is
poetical and solemn. The faUen leaves rustle beneath
one's pushing feet, green and gold and amber ; pale hlac
crocuses touched with rime peep through, as though to
bid farewell to summer. Then we reach the homestead.
The mass of masonry seems too large for its surroundings.
It was evidently buUt as the adjunct to some strenuous
phase of hfe in the submerged town of Plurs — a place
to which its masters came for solace and expansion.
Now it stands alone here, among the chestnut boles,
close by the dusty waste of stones which swaUowed Plurs
up, itself abandoned to Heaven knows what kind of
occupancy. We knock, and enter : find ourselves in a
wide echoing haU : are introduced into an apartment
paneUed with carved woodwork in the broad style of
the late Renaissance. An Enghsh or American parvenu,
if he could clothe his reception-rooms with that panelling,
would feel himself possessed with ancestors, provided with
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Chiavenna in April
some immemorial tradition from the past. But the place
is too solemn to linger long in, and the frescoes upon the
walls are too grotesque to invite an art student's atten
tion. Let us abandon the weird old house. Neverthe
less, when we turn our backs upon it, we shaU perforce
admit that few things have been seen by us in fact more
like what we had dreamed of in romance and story.
Not there, not on the outskirts of buried Plurs, lies
the true spell of Chiavenna. I do not invite the prisoners
of winter in the High Alps down to these decayed habita
tions. Such ruins supply at best an episode for poets,
a subject for the painter's palette. It is the noble land,
the plenteous nature, the luxuriant vegetation, the good
water and the wholesome air, the exceUent quarters and
the ease in your inn, and lastly, and above all, the escape
ment into beautiful Italy, which form the permanent
attractions of Chiavenna — Chiavenna, the key of Italy
and Alpine secrets, as its name implies. Clavis, Chiave,
Clav, Clef. I leave my readers to find what further
mysteries this key unlocks. J. A. S.

91

CATCHING A MARMOT
It was already growing hot when we left Davos at 7.15 a.m.
to ascend the Seehorn, and we were very hot indeed when
we reached the summit at 10. There we were flattered
into a feeling of coolness by a pleasant wind, and we sat
long on the mossy ground, lazfly looking down on the
lake at our feet, whUst we devoured some very acid plums
and discoursed, as I now remember, upon the cruelty of
sport. We decided to descend the mountain on the western
side — there where the rocks break so suddenly the shining
strips of turf. We had not gone far down before we came
upon a fine marmot, who had stroUed out to enjoy the
pleasures of the day like ourselves. He beat a hasty
retreat, and we foUowed, regretting that marmots are
always so unapproachable.
After that we fingered long upon the slopes, picking
flowers. We noticed that our dog had disappeared, and
became aware of loud sharp barkings, mixed with a curious
whisthng sound, ascending from the wood far below us.
The noise was so strange that we hastened down to dis
cover the cause. The sounds grew ever more excited as
we approached ; sometimes ceasing, then beginning again
with redoubled force. Great was our interest, for we
knew the dog to be a Venetian by birth, and therefore
no sportsman. Yet somehow the sounds savoured of sport.
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Catching a Marmot
We were now in the wood, and suddenly breaking
through some thick trees we came upon a very extra
ordinary scene. The broad stem of a fir-tree jutted out
over a smaU precipice. Against this fir-tree, on his hind
legs, with fore paws waving in anger, stood a large
marmot at bay. He whistled furiously. Our black
spitz-dog stood trembling at a safe distance, his shrill
bark clashing with the squeal of the marmot. To the
general noise there was now added our screams. We
had left our morahty on the top of the peak, and were
both seized with the same intense desire to possess that
nice fat marmot.
The chase began. At first stealthily, then furiously.
One of us got above the precipice, and one below. Just
as we felt ourselves sure of him, off went the marmot,
whUe only his taU received a parting salute from the end
of an alpenstock. The sun blazed down over the hot
rocks. Our footing was most insecure. Hats, alpen
stocks, baskets, flowers — aU were abandoned and went
bowhng down, unnoticed, into the forest. TaUy ho !
AU things but the marmot were forgotten. And pre
sently we came upon him. He had got into a narrow
crevice between the rocks. In vain did we puU his taU
enticingly. Other means than these must be tried.
And, moreover, with us it was a matter of, " First make
a bag for your marmot, then catch him." Necessity being
the mother of invention, a grand plan was hit upon. Hair
pins have always acted as friends in need — hairpins run
hastUy through a petticoat — and the effect was supreme.
Superfluous garments become an incubus when hunting a
marmot in a sun heat of 140° Fahr.
For half an hour we worked to oust that marmot. We
used gentle means, and he used his teeth and his whistle.
The dog barked. We screamed. For thirty minutes
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Bedlam was let loose on the rocks of the Seehorn. Then
sUence. The last stone which covered his retreat had
to be removed, and with it the last chance, perhaps, of
our ever catching a marmot. The ledge of narrow rock
whereon one of us crouched in a trembling agony of ex
citement offered smaU room for action. The creek,
where the other was engaged in driving up the marmot
from behind, perhaps even less.
The bag, prepared with so much genius, was now laid
cautiously along the ground ; the last stone was hurled
in pursuit of our lost properties. From the crack into
which the marmot had retreated his fat body at last
emerged and scuttled into the snare prepared for him.
A bit of string, a tight knot, and the bag was closed.
WeU, at mid-day on July 8, 1889, two heated damsels
were to be seen toihng along the Davos-Dorfli road, one
bearing, slung over her shoulder, a mysterious striped
bag, the contents of which wriggled furiously, and weighed
twelve Swiss pounds. M. S.

94

VIGNETTES IN PROSE AND VERSE
DAVOS REVISITED
Those who are obliged, as I have been, to hve for their
health's sake in an Alpine valley, escape from it with
alacrity from time to time. There is a sense of being
imprisoned, a feeling of physical and mental stifling,
owing to the narrow limits of the landscape and the
monotony of everlasting pine woods. The view is
bounded upon aU sides by the craggy hiUs, shutting out
the distance and preventing one from gazing on the
miracles of sunrise and sunset. You only infer that the
sun has risen by a flush of rose along the eastern crests,
and that he has sunk by the same change of colour in
the western sky. This in itself is irksome to eyes famihar
with the broad landscapes of England or the horizons of
a southern sea. Then the scenery, though grand, is
simple in its majesty, severe in colouring, varied with few
picturesque detaUs, iU adapted to the purposes of art.
Of course, too, the many interests of city hfe are wanting.
There are no statues or pictures, no historic buUdings ;
the libraries are scantUy furnished, the theatre is inade
quate, the music third-rate, even in a place so far advanced
as Davos-Platz. Most people, especiaUy those of an
aesthetic temperament, find it very difficult to maintain
their inteUectual energy under these conditions. They
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
pine and droop. Even those who, like myself, have
hterary work to do, and find that they can do it here
with less expenditure of force than at a lower level, fret
now and then, and long to get away. It is, therefore, an
immense pleasure to descend into the spacious plains of
Lombardy, to float upon the mirrors of Venetian lagoons,
with that illimitable vault of burning sky above, or to
wander through the ancient towns of Central Italy.
Nevertheless, the mountains take a lasting hold upon
their foster-chUdren, and foreigners who have lived
among them long acquire something of the Nostalgia,
or Heimweh, which the natives feel for Switzerland. It
is pleasant to return to the tranquU never-changing scene,
the perpetuity of nature.
Yet once more, world of whiteness, world of snow,
World of calm winter sunlight, clear and low,
Where winds are hushed and waters fret no more
These yellowing reeds beside the frozen shore ;
Thee I salute, as one who late hath found
Rest for nerves over-wrought by sight and sound ;
Who fain would sleep, yet not all sleep, but be
Cradled in wise insensibility ;
Ifor whom the days monotonously dear
Shall fill the cycle of a vacant year,
In blank well-being, thoughtless, deedless, still,
Untouched by ache of good, by pang of ill.

The Alpine Wreath
There are two brief intervals of colour beauty in the
High Alps. One is during late autumn, toward the close
of September, when the upland pastures above the forest
hne and the grey precipices of barren rocks assume hues
of orange, russet, purple. This is due to the decay of
innumerable httle shrubs and herbs. AU kinds of um-
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Vignettes in Prose and Verse
beUiferous plants turn a brUliant yellow. The bUberry
takes a tint of bluish red ; the arctostaphylos burns in
cataracts and patches of pure scarlet ; the mountain ash
puts on a coat of crimson. This is the appearance they
present when you walk through them. But seen in mass
together from any considerable distance, they lend a
peculiarly rich and varied tone to the stern landscape.
It is hke a glow of warmth and atmospheric violet dif
fused upon the scene. Unluckily, as the frost strengthens,
the leaves wither and fall. The glory hardly lasts a fort
night. The other interval of which I speak is in early
June. The long seven months' winter, with its grim
monotony of snow — interminable whiteness, varied only
by bright blue shadows — has yielded at length. Then
suddenly the meadows bourgeon into flower-beds. It is
impossible to describe the variety and brilliance of these
summer flowers, and the dehghtful impression which they
leave on eyes and brain starved in the craving colour-sense.
One wanders singing through field and forest. Every
day seems to bring some new and lovely blossom to hght.
A garland I will weave of mountain flowers :
Pure golden-hearted dryas, silverly
Touched o' the nether leaf ; androsace,
That deepens from cream-white through summer hours
To crimson ; with the dark soul-nourishing powers
Of azure gentian, bright-eyed euphrasy,
Pink Alpine clover, pale anemone,
And saxifrages fed by flying showers.
These I love best ; for these when snows withdraw,
When down the vexed paths of the avalanche
Shy deities of spring renew their dance,
Cheer those gaunt crumbling chffs that tempests blanch,
Where black streams thunder through the glacier's jaw
And sun-gleams o'er the world-old cembra glance.

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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands

MOONRISE AND MOONSET
We started late one February afternoon for a toboggan
run to Klosters. The sun had set when we left Wolfgang ;
but aU the sky was rosy with its after-glow, the peaks
and snow-fields which surrounded us shining in every
hue of saffron and crimson. Then, as we rushed down
the steep descent, there swam rapidly upon our sight
from behind the vast bulk of a black mountain pass, the
fuU moon, a huge transpicuous dew-pearl of intensest
green, bathed in fiery colours of the glowing heavens.
People who summer in the Arctic Circle describe these
luminous effects. Our swift motion beneath the celestial
wonders, over the myriad-tinted snow-path, added in
toxicating glory to the vision. It was hke flying through
a sphere of iridescent beryl. But we soon passed down
ward from those airy heights, and plunged into the forest,
where all the splendours of the sky and the path we sped
upon were swallowed in chasms of black shadow. From
these we emerged into the sUver of the moon, striving
victoriously at that lower level to surpass the sunset in
candescence we had left above. . . .
I rose at four o'clock one summer morning. Dawn
was going up behind the Tyrolese frontier, and in the
south-west a buoyant vast balloon of moon, greenish,
hke a lustrous globe of aqua-marine, hung swathed in
rosy air upon the flat slope of Altein. The Davos vaUey,
blurred and vaporous with cold white mists of night and
thunderstorm ; the church spire piercing them, teUing
that men and women lived there shrouded. But up
above, on aU the heights, Nature played her own divine
symphony ; the full moon sinking glorified, the dawn
ascending red and tired already. Has it often been
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Vignettes in Prose and Verse
noticed how very tired the earth looks at sunrise ? Like
Michael Angelo's wUd female figure on the tomb at San
Lorenzo, dragging herself with anguish out of slumber.
I felt this most three years ago, after spending a summer
night upon the Feldberg, those enormous German plains
outspread around me. When the morning came at last,
its infinite sadness was almost heartbreaking.

A February Morning
The Via Mala at 6 a.m. was ghostly glorious. The
undefined light of approaching dawn dUated all its heights
and depths, and a waning moon hung far away to west
ward in a melancholy space of sky between the beetling
crags and nodding precipices. Everywhere the frozen
cataracts and huge ice-columns gleamed with spectral,
garish lustre out of the grey twilight. We were the only
things ahve, except the stationary pines, in that long,
tortuous descent. Primeval forces seemed to clip us
round ; the grey-green architecture of the ice, in which
aU life of leaping streams hung speU-bound and sus
pended, added intensity of grimness to the deathly cold
and stillness of the scene.
With a sense of things that are over
A touch of the years long dead,
A perfume of withered clover,
An echo of kindness fled,
We wake on this morn when snow-wreaths
Silently thaw to rain,
And the love that the old years know breathes
Dying, not born again.
Cold and grey is the morning,
Grey with evanishing rose ;
We wake, and I feel her warning,
I know what the doomed man knows.
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Strayed are the streams of madness,
Dried is the fount of tears ;
But oh, at the heart what sadness !
And oh, in the soul what fears !

In the Averser Thal
There is nothing in the way of river scenery among the
mountains to equal this. The Averser Rhein, at one
point of its course, transcends in fairy-hke charm the
Sesia and the Mastalone, and all those lovely torrents of
the Dolomites. It has a tremendous volume of the
clearest azure water, which sometimes hides in obscure
caverns and cembra-tufted gorges ; sometimes swims
through grassy meadows with wide swishing curves that
hoUow out the turfy margin to their liking ; sometimes
carves a monumental way through chffs of pure white
marble, white and pure as Pentelican or Parian, foaming
on paved work of smooth, flawless lustre ; sometimes faUs
thundering in cataracts arched with changeful rainbows ;
sometimes glides, deep and solemn, in dark pools that
make the spirit dream of death, and long to dive in them
and pluck the heart out of their mystery.
We slept, my guide and I, at Canicul, in a room which
held the archives of the vaUey in a chest, and had the
Eucharistic vessels of the commune (ancient pewter wine-
jugs of a pecuhar shape) on the window-siU. Our host
was the Landammann.

In a Graubunden Stable
I often smoke my pipe in the stable of an evening.
The company of hinds and grooms offers an agreeable
contrast to the popes and despots, sculptors and poets,
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Vignettes in Prose and Verse
historians and diplomatists of the sixteenth century with
whom I pass my working hours. These men have a
great deal to teU that is interesting about the habits of
their animals, the incidents of their rough life, the perUs
of the mountain passes in winter, and the dangerous
labour of bringing blocks of larch or pine down from
the craggy forests. Then the beasts in a Swiss stable
are usuaUy well cared for ; the mUd-eyed cows lie com
fortably ruminating, with their taUs tied up to the stalls.
The horses are almost overfed, and love their masters.
To express the mood of these evenings I composed this
sonnet late one night, seated alone upon the corn-
chest : —
A flat, rug-cushioned corn-bin ; one dim lamp
Darting malign light ; harness-hung low walls,
Panelled with pine, where gleam of satin falls
Subdued from rays scarce struggling through the damp.
Six stalwart horses : how they feed and stamp,
Nuzzling their noses to the brimful stalls ;
Skin smooth as silk, sleek tails : hark ! Sepperl calls,
Whinnying to Popp, his mate ; then turns to champ.
This is the gloom to dream in, sending up
Fragrant smoke-incense to far rafters dun.
The cat purrs in her sleep ; the tired grooms sup
Their bed-ward ale ; then, lounging, one by one,
Slouch to yon hay-loft in the roof above.
I, only I, am left — with Night and Love.

Autumn Mists
An impressive feature of early autumn in these high
regions, dividing that soft, slow season from the summer,
is the frequent invasion of the valleys by white, dry,
fleecy clouds of vapour. They are formed in lower
Switzerland, upon the lakes of Constance, Zurich, and
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
WaUenstadt ; whence they come stealing, hke a flooding
tide, up every creek and crevice of the mountains.
They do not reach the summits. Standing upon the
crest of some taU hiU, you may gaze upon the congre
gated peaks around, emergent from a sea of woolly
whiteness. The clasp and curl of these vapour biUows,
their lazy, crawhng movement along the hiUsides, the
way in which they overflood some barrier such as a
mound or pine-clad buttress, render them peculiarly
attractive to watch. The sight has a subtle power
of evoking sad but restful thoughts, inviting the soul
to reverie. Oh sweet, oh soft, this interbreathing space
Between deep draughts of labour ; soft and sweet
This pause the year makes with slow sauntering steps
'Twixt summer, autumn, and pure snow's embrace.
Now the grey mists blown from some far-off place
Of Bodensee or Rhienthal, merging, meet
At dew-faU round the mountains, flow and fleet,
Stream into air when morn ascends apace.
Now thoughts that summer through like hounds did chase
Their quarry, dream, or silent sessions keep.
Love now clings cloud-like round the soul ; one face,
That troubled, trembled, questioned, floats with deep
Tender persuasion o'er the fields of sleep.
Oh soft, oh sweet, this transient autumn grace.

A Night upon the Schwartzhorn
I reached the Hospiz of the Fluela at seven, supped,
and went to bed at eight. Slept at once profoundly, till
Josias Hold's voice woke me, bidding me to coffee, on
the stroke of midnight. The gymnasts had arrived, some
twenty-eight young fellows. We started for the peak in
fair full moonlight. It was very still and solemn, wind-
102

THE SCHWARTZHORN FROM FLUELA
HOSPICE.

Vignettes in Prose and Verse
ing slowly upwards to the snow-slopes and the glacier.
All sounds have a pecuhar value in the twilight of an
August night. There was something particularly thriUing
in the murmur of a streamlet rushing beneath huge wrecks
of boulders which we crossed. Behind us, above the
mountains of the Lower Engadine, hung a marveUous
star of dawn. It " flamed in the forehead of the morning
sky," ascending ever over peak and precipice, as flying
from the slow reluctant dayspring. The moon was nearly
full, and made a lantern useless. Nothing equals the
solemnity of these midnight marches on the high uplifted
horns. Nor did the gymnasts break the speU. They
moved like soldiers, keeping step, and spoke with the
low sweet voices of country folk. On the glacier we
found a heavy coating of snow, which forced us to walk
warily. Then came the saddle and the steep arete :
slippery rocks and frosted ledges, hanging sheer above
the Dischma Thai. I was not sorry to leave them for a
tract of steep hard snow which led to the summit. We
aU gathered round the cairn, and waited in sUence for
the sunrise. Eastward there first appeared a band of
white, which looked like moonshine on a belt of mist,
but was reaUy a token of the dawn : for while the pyramids
of Pitz Linard and Buin cut into it with their sUvered
cones, it toned to green, and passed from citron to meUow
orange, widening, broadening, creeping round about the
circuit of the sky, but leaving the moon still mistress of
the upper heavens. Then Bernina, Ortler, and Todi
began to glow with a faint half-conscious rose. So the
dawn stole graduaUy onward, fading the flying star and
westering moon, disclosing all the peaks of Switzerland
and Tyrol, lingering through that inexplicably prolonged
space of time which sunrise always occupies. When the
east was already fuU of coming light, there shot with
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
broad impulsive sweep from the zenith fuU into the core
of hidden fire a luminous, majestic meteor — a thrUling
episode in this dawn-drama — as though some star had
left her station, yearning to engulf her radiance in our
planetary sphere. At last a crest in Tyrol dazzled with
true sunlight ; and in a few moments the whole Alp-
world lay bathed in rosy-golden day. I then discerned,
far, far away, a tiny blue comb of crags upon the south
eastern verge of the Italian plain — a Dolomite beyond
the Etzsch Thai — perhaps the Rosengarten. It was
freezing hard all this while. But the sun brought
warmth, and showed the Schwartzhorn hoary with
night's frost, which melted literally, hke a dream,
away. 'Neath an uncertain moon, in light malign,
We trod those rifted granite crags, whereunder,
Startling the midnight air with muffled thunder,
Plowed infant founts of Danube and of Rhine.
Our long-drawn file in slow deliberate line
Scaled stair on stair, subdued to silent wonder ;
Wound among mouldering rocks that rolled asunder,
Rattling with hollow roar down death's decline.
Still as we rose, one white transcendent star
Steered calmly heavenward through the empurpled gloom,
Escaping from the dim reluctant bar
Of morning, chill and ashen-pale as doom ;
Where the day's chargers, champing at his ear,
Waited till Sol should quit night's banquet-room.
Pure on the frozen snows, the glacier-steep,
Slept moonlight with the tense unearthly charm
Of spells that have no power to bless or harm ;
But, when we touched the ridge which tempests sweep,
Death o'er the murk vale, yawning wide and deep,
Clung to frost-slippery shelves, and sharp alarm,
Shuddering in eager air, drove life's blood warm
Back to stout hearts and staunch will's fortress-keep.
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Vignettes in Prose and Verse
Upward we clomb ; till now the emergent morn,
Belting the horror of dim jagged eastern heights,
Broadened from green to saffron, primrose-pale,
Pelt with faint finger-tips of rose each horn,
Crept round the Alpine circuit, o'er each dale
Dwelt with dumb broodings drearier even than night's.
Thus dawn had come ; not yet the day : night's queen
And morning's star their state in azure kept :
Still on the mountain world weird silence slept ;
Earth, air, and heaven held back their song serene.
Then from the zenith, fiery-white between
Moonshine and dayspring, with swift impulse swept
A splendour of the skies that throbbing leapt
Down to the core of passionate flame terrene —
A star that ruining from yon throne remote,
Quenched her celestial yearnings in the pyre
Of mortal pangs and pardons. At that sign
The orient sun with day's broad arrow smote
Black Linard's arrogant brow, while influent fire
Slaked the world's thirst for hght with joy divine.

On the Silvretta Glacier
My friend, Peter Minsch, drove us in a brake with a
pair of horses from Klosters up to Sardasca. It is a stiff
climb of two hours from the cow-huts to the glacier, over
rough grazing-ground, and along chffs tufted with alpen-
rose and bUberry. The sun had sunk before we reached
the Club-Hiitte, and aU the Prattigau lay in deep shadow
under a shield of smouldering gold. We supped ; and
whUe we were so engaged there came a German doctor
with his wife, two Tyrolese guides, and a half-drunken
feUow from Klosters. The scene was picturesque enough.
The hut is a low building with stone waUs, roofed over
rather abruptly with rafters : a smaU stove in the corner
by the door ; two lockers provided with wine and crockery ;
105

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
two broad sleeping berths strewn with hay.1 Candles
were stuck about, lighting up the smoke-browned interior
and the motley party there. Visiting-cards of former
tourists adorned the panels. Outside roared the glacier
torrent, and from the hut door we could see the distant
lights of Klosters. At nine we aU turned in to sleep.
The hay was made into rough beds, and rugs were spread
for our feet. Three groups were formed : one of my
wife, myself, and Warren ; one of our guides ; the third
of the Germans and their guides.
At three o'clock the guides brought us coffee. I looked
out, and felt a raw wind blowing off the glacier. Smoky
greyish clouds raced along the upper peaks, faintly tinged
with feeble sunrise-light, blurring the stars and dimly-
coloured sky. The morning star, close beside a thin
moon in her last quarter, swam now clear of mist, now
entangled. The prospect for a fine day was not bad.
And yet one felt that the serene weather of the past
week had suffered change.
We crossed the glacier stream, and after twenty minutes'
walking over the moraine got upon dirty ice. Then fol
lowed two hours of continuous ascent over gradual snow-
slopes, never very steep, until we reached the summit of
the SUvretta Pass, about 10,200 feet above sea-level.
The views, as we went climbing on, became singularly
beautiful — looking back upon the green meadows of the
Prattigau, with the Davoser Weissfluh and Casanna
crowning its dark forests, and in the far distance Calanda
and Todi leading the eye onward to the Bernese Ober-
land — all this bathed in soft, almost Italian colouring,
the hues of a dove's breast. On the other side, Scesa-
plana closed the prospect ; but here the finest episode
1 This Club-hut is a thing of the past now. It has been replaced
by a two-storied shelter, where excellent accommodation can be had.
106

Vignettes in Prose and Verse
was the group of the two Litzners, each double-peaked
and bizarre with sharp splintered towers, swathed up in
mists of violet and amber like huge stone imitations of
the Monch and Eiger. The long curves of the glacier
formed a splendid foreground to this panorama, while
the jagged precipices of the Silvrettahorn and Verstank-
lahorn enclosed it in a frame of snow-sprinkled sombre
rock. Marching onward over the level snow-fields of the
Pass, we enjoyed two different pictures slowly opening
on our gaze. To the right hand, past the Gletscherhorn,
the eye foUows the steep ice-faU of Vadret Paitscha, and
rises by a sudden spring up to the gigantic pyramid of
Pitz Linard, a most noble and imposing mass of dark
grey granite, mightily buttressed by sharp spines of
jutting precipices. Facing him stands the comparatively
insignificant block of Pitz Fhana, not powerful enough
to impair his majesty, yet sufficient in bulk to supply
the equipoise required for the suggestion of a superb
portal, through which, beyond incalculable space of air,
the whole Bernina range rose glittering and silver into
clear cerulean heavens. This was splendid. Yet right
in front through a second mighty portal formed by the
same mass of Pitz Fliana fronting the red and orange-
tinted peak of Klein Buin, appeared a picture softer and
more beautiful. Above some serrated ranges of Enga
dine mountains, Ortler soared in his incomparably grace
ful sublimity ; and the low sun bathed each plane of the
long landscape with suave light and crystal shadow.
This, I thought, is capable of even being painted ; an
almost perfect composition. We passed onward, and
down the Plan Rai glacier, skirting Klein Buin, and
graduaUy coming within sight of the nobler Pitz Buin.
AU the rocks here are red and tawny with iron ore,
greenish in some places, as with serpentine or copper.
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
The httle cols and cheminees of ice, the undulating snow-
tracts, and the hard blue sky above, formed with these
variegated rocks a singular combination of colours. There
is a tiresome steep moraine to descend after leaving the
glacier ; then a long delightful walk over springy meadows
and through larch woods, near a hurrying stream, to
Guarda in the Lower Engadine.

Cloud Iridescence
After many years spent in the High Alps I have come
to regard this phenomenon as a very ordinary occurrence,
especiaUy in the winter. The clouds which display iri
descence are usually motionless shoals, shuttle-shaped or
fish-shaped, thinner at the edges than the interior. The
iridescence, which is sometimes of quite extraordinary
briUiancy, shows itself in most cases at the edge of the
cloud, but sometimes is suffused like a sort of prismatic
tinting over the whole surface. One may occasionaUy
notice patches of the same variegated hues suspended in
what is apparently cloudless blue sky, but which contains,
I suppose, finely diffused vapour. I may also add that
the same phenomena are observable with diminished
minosity and brightness of hue by moonlight. The
finest display of iridescent cloud I ever witnessed was on
the 7th of December, 1879, from the summit of the
Schwartzhorn, 10,300 feet above the sea. The sky, which,
viewed from that altitude, spread like a canopy over the
entire Alpine region — from the Gross Glockner eastward
to Monte Rosa in the far west, from Todi to the Ortler —
was fretted with innumerable and isolated shuttle-shaped
clouds, clearly defined against the hard deep purple of
the firmament, and tinged with the most vivid nacreous
108

Vignettes in Prose and Verse
tints wherever the sun struck them at the proper angle.
Lying on my back and gazing upwards, I was reminded
of the appearance presented by some of the frailest
sihceous sheU-structures when seen under a powerful
microscope. It may be added that this beautiful spec
tacle did not last very long, for the weather was on the
point of changing, and a blustering Fohn-wind blurred
and confused the cloud landscape. Cloud iridescence, I
need not add, is not to be confounded with either haloes
or fragmentary rainbows ; nor need it be said that the
phenomenon is not confined to the High Alps. The first
time I ever noticed it was many years ago on the raUway
descent to Dijon, about four o'clock on a fine October
afternoon, and I have sometimes observed it also in
England, but never so brilliantly or so commonly as
during winter in the Grisons.

The Phenomenal Sunsets of 1884
Here at Davos the sun in mid-winter does not rise
above the mountain barrier tiU 10 a.m., and sinks again
below it at about 3.30 p.m. We therefore do not witness
either sunrise or sunset upon the horizon, but judge of
the effects of both by Ught and colour in the upper sky.
On the evenings of November 29 and 30, when the hne
of bills to westward were quite black, and the stars were
shining in the heavens, a rosy flame, almost exactly hke
the northern lights, but of a purer quality, overspread
the western sky, denned the hard black outline of the
mountain range, and glared upon the white expanse of
snow in the vaUey and along its eastern barriers. On
one occasion the young moon and some stars shone with
a pallor of extraordinary luminosity in the midst of this
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
rose-tinted veil. On another occasion the whole north
eastern region of the heavens was at the same time of
the most vivid golden-green — the pecuhar green of
chrysoprase and some highly-tinted beryls. Each tone
of hght, rose and green, was reflected on the long broad
basin of valley snow, the blending of both colours being
of a strange bewildering briUiancy. At this height of
more than 5,000 feet above the sea, the atmosphere has
great purity and transparency. It therefore happens
that on cloudless days the sun shines, a hard white baU
of light in a darkly-tinted blue firmament. But I noticed
during aU the days when these phenomena were visible,
that instead of presenting this ordinary appearance, the
sun, from early morning tUl late evening, moved sur
rounded by a luminous, slightly opalescent haze — not at
all resembling halo or iridescence of vapour. The quahty
of this haze was quite different, being far more evenly
distributed, and such colour-tone as it possessed being far
more finely graduated from centre to circumference. The
morning phenomena, at the same period, were also notice
able for their beauty, but not so exceptional as those of the
evening.
An Ode to the Fohn-Wind
The Fohn is a hot, dry wind which blows from the south.
People used innocently to suppose that it was the Sirocco
of the Mediterranean, coming heated from African deserts.
This has been disproved, and the present theory is that
the Fohn is generated in upper regions of the atmosphere
under special meteorological conditions. Its violence and
dryness make it exceedingly dangerous to villages. Hun
dreds have been burned down during its frequent and
stormy visitations. I beheve that in valleys where it
110

Vignettes in Prose and Verse
rages with more than usual force — those of Glarus, for
instance, and of Meiringen — people are forbidden to light
their fires in a strong Fohn. In the winter here they
caU it the Schneefresser, or snow-devourer. It does more
to melt the snow upon the Alps and to launch avalanches
on the vaUeys than any other agency. Like the Sirocco,
it has a curious effect upon the nerves, at once irritating
and relaxing. Few people feel weU while it is blowing.
In me it excites restless longings and vague desires for
the impossible. Something of this effect I have tried to
express in verse, using (with culpable temerity, perhaps)
the magnificent stanza created by Byron and appro
priated by Swinburne : —
Over this prison,
Where suns new risen
Can yield no vision
Beyond our vale,
The south wind, winging
His way, and bringing
Echoes of singing,
Doth lightly sail :
That rippling burden
Pull oft I've heard on
The waves he stirred on
Itahan sea.
O light land-rover,
0 soft sea-lover,
Soul of the South, I am fain for thee !
Thou fickle stranger,
Blithe ocean-ranger,
From dread and danger
And man's doubt free !
Thy wings enfold me,
Thy whispers hold me ;
What hast thou told me
Of Venice and thee ?
Ill

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
A vault of thunder ;
Two lives thereunder,
That clasp and sunder
In gloom and glare.
This hast thou sung to me,
This hast thou flung to me,
Swift as the hghtning on earth and air !

For though years carry
Their load, and tarry
On hearts that marry
With frore despair ;
StiU 'neath thy pinion,
E'en misery's minion
Scorns her dominion,
And smiles at care.
These lips with kisses,
Where love still misses
Hope's crown of blisses,
Are faint and fain ;
For thou hast sought me,
Thy breath hath brought me
Lips of light loving above the main.
In life's Decembers
The heart remembers
That 'neath joy's embers
Lurked fear and pain.
Yet, oh, my master,
Through all disaster
Thrills fast and faster
The yearning strain.
I pine and sicken,
Keen memories thicken,
These dry roots quicken
'Neath winter's bed.
For thou hast spoken,
Thy spells have broken
Prosts of the spirit that bound her dead.
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Vignettes in Prose and Verse
Oh ! foUow, follow !
From this white hollow
Fly like the swallow ;
Lay Hope's tired head
In some south garden,
Where youth is warden,
And gates are barred on
The north wind's tread !
Let music waft her
With light and laughter
Where, months hereafter,
Some clinging scent
Of pines that languish
In summer's anguish
ShaU tell of the years of the pains here spent.
Ah me, forsaken !
From dreams I waken :
Thy wings are shaken,
Thy veil is rent :
Snows, snows surround me,
Winter hath bound me,
Old age hath found me,
My brows are bent.
Haste, haste, sea-lover,
Lest snow-flakes cover
Thy wings that hover
Above our vale !
For the north winds whistle,
The stout pines bristle,
Soul of the South, thou are frail and pale.
J. A. S.

113 H

SUMMER IN THE PRATTIGAU
Conters is a smaU viUage in Prattigau. It is one of
those tiny settlements of wooden houses, clustering round
a doU's church, amid meadows and orchards such as one
may always find in Swiss vaUeys, perched high above
the river on the side of the hill, and quite separated from
the rest of the world. Here one of my Swiss friends was
born. Her father — Herr Brosi — is Stadthalter of the sur
rounding district. He is a weU-read and weU-educated
man, with charming manners and conversation, and his
greatest pleasure hes in the successful cultivation of fruit
trees. When Fraulein Brosi married, she came to live
up in Davos with her husband, who farms a small pro
perty on the lake. I had long promised to spend a day
with her down in her old home when the cherries should
be ripe. The time of cherries had come. It was the
last day of July, and it was with a feeling of real pleasure
that I made the plan over night with Frau Hold to drive
on the foUowing day into Prattigau, and spend some
hours among its fruit trees and those more generous
blossoms of July we cannot gather on these mountain
heights. At half -past four I awoke. Through my open window
I saw the vaUey he blue in shadow as though holding
stUl to some dreams of the past night. The men were
out already, mowing the frozen grass, and all the meadows
114

KLOSTERS FROM THE RAILROAD.

t -1 '

< -

jft

. - ¦.
¦ % %i
2* '
;
Jti.Vt .
Summer in the Prattigau
were white with summer hoar-frost. The sun just tipped
the mountain peaks, and they caught the light, and
tossed it back one from another, tiU every line beneath
the sky was rosy. Soon after five the carriage came
round, and I drove away in the early morning light.
There was that delicious sense of frost struggling with
the dawn of a warm summer day. The sun was sucking
thick milky mists out of the hoUows where they clung
amongst the leaves and grasses. The lake was aU in
shadow as I drove by, and very calm. Through the
steamy mists which rose upon its surface one could see
far down to where the water- weeds were growing.
Frau Hold, with her baby and various bundles (which
are always part of a Biindner lady when she visits her
relatives), met me at the other end of the lake, and we
drove on over the pass and down through the woods to
Klosters. Here the sun finally rose, or rather penetrated
into the heart of the vaUey, and I felt the summer day
had begun. It was interesting to me to trace the line
of the new raUway which was that year stiU in a skeleton
state. Crowds of workmen were out on the line — hard
working, large-eyed men from the south, carrying " Pro
gress " with supreme indifference up into the old-souled
mountains, through green and sleepy meadows, past
wooden homesteads — " das schone Gegend verderbend,"
as my companion fitly remarked. AU the vUlage gardens
by which we passed were full of bloom, and the carna
tions hanging from the windows gave promise of innumer
able flowers. We reached Kiiblis at nine, and waited to
water the horse, then started up the opposite side of the
vaUey for the village of Conters. The road is smooth
and good, but very steep, traversing steadily up and
along broad meadows and orchards with one dip through
a beech wood. Under the beech trees the sun came
115 h 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
shivering in flakes of golden green upon the faintly-
trembling leaves. There were tufts of ferns in the waUs,
and cool trickling springs. Emerging from this shadow
we came out again upon broad meadow-lands, in the
midst of which Conters is built — that warm, wooden
viUage, so daintily put down and smothered among fruit
trees, over which its roofs emerge and peer down into
the valley of Prattigau, or up towards the glaciers of
Silvretta. The church lies a little below the houses. It
is a squat white bunding with a sloping wooden roof, and
a high waU round the ground where the people of Conters
bury their dead.
As we had not warned the Brosi family of our arrival
its members had gone out as usual to their work in the
fields, leaving their house door locked. But whilst Frau
Hold went off to fetch her people, I was most kindly wel
comed by their neighbours the Sprechers, who live in
a large wooden chalet across the street. I had walked aU
the way up from Kiiblis, under a burning sun, and it was
very pleasant to sit down on the cool bench by the window
of the panelled Stube and look out across the orchard.
There was a lovely old lady there with grey hair and a rosy
complexion. Her tall gaunt daughter placed Eierbrod
and raspberry syrup before me on the wooden table, and
also a pUe of literature. These Sprecher ladies seemed to
read a great deal during the long evenings of winter.
When the Brosis returned from the fields I was summoned
to their house next door. It is a pretty low homestead,
buUt aU of wood, which is burnt almost black by the sun.
Hops grow abundantly over the stacked wood, clinging in
green festoons from the eaves and tossing back long
streamers from the beams. Lucia, Frau Hold's pretty
young sister — a girl with lots of yellow hair plaited round
her head like a crown — came out to meet me, and took
116

Summer in the Prattigui
me through a dark passage into the Stube, a sitting-room
which is hke most Graubiinden sitting-rooms, panelled
entirely with wood ; a green stove of solid serpentine in
one corner, a cupboard with some inlaid work on its doors,
and painted plates on the dresser, in another ; and a
bench running round the wall behind the table. Quan
tities of flowers, grown in potted-meat tins, broke the
sunlight in the windows, and here the bees buzzed
dreamily. The Stadthalter then took me out into his
garden to see the young trees, caUing special attention
to a wonderful Italian cherry-tree which bore cherries
like liquid red light. I picked and ate them every one.
This sounds greedy, but greediness is equivalent to eti
quette when one visits in Biindnerland. Leaving the
garden, I went with Lucia and the baby for a slow walk
along a path which skirts straight across the hillside
through the beech-woods till it reaches a point where
there is a " view." Walks in search of views are not, as
a rule, satisfactory affairs, but this one I thought was
very beautiful. The rough bed of the Landquart river,
so far below, seen through the tall trunks of the beech
trees, was a novel and romantic sight. The day was
warm ; we sat down on some fresh-mown hay, and ate the
unripe hazel-nuts which grew around us. The child
roared in a meaningless manner — babies have that way
in aU countries. Its phlegmatic young aunt paid it scant
attention. The church bell rang for Mittag. Nothing
otherwise disturbed the hot noonday stUlness. Herr
Brosi met us on our way back, and taking me into the
Stube told me many interesting stories. He told me of
the terrific avalanche which in the year 1722 rushed over
Saas one day, doing infinite harm to the old village ; and
when on the foUowing day all hands were engaged in
digging out the ruins, a second avalanche fell and killed
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
the men at work and ruined the entire village, choking up
Prattigau. But the north side of the vaUey remained
unharmed. Conters looked down in comfort over her
neighbour's devastation, and found in one of her meadows
next morning a hen's nest containing all its eggs intact,
which had been swept out of some stables in Saas, and
carried by the wind across the vaUey. Now Saas is aU
built up again — a new Saas, smothered in orchards, its
houses burnt black by the sun, and where the old village
stood is now a fertile cup of green meadow fuU of fruit
trees, and only this much of the avalanche remains — a
long white scar slanting along the mountain-side, where
the great mass feU, and where the slow pine forest and
scanty turf has never grown again. But below this again
a new and narrower, and to me a stUl more terrible scar
on the breast of the mountain, is seen — that of the raUway.
This, however, is Progress.
The mid-day meal was now announced. It consisted
of fried gediegenes Fleisch, or died meat, soup, bofled ham,
potatoes, and prunes, with a pUe of red-currants for
dessert. And after this the Stadthalter said, " Die Jagd
wird jetzt losgehen." The ladies of the party were all
provided with serviceable aprons ; Herr Brosi, and Julius
our driver, each shouldered a ladder ; and off we went to
the cherry-trees. The Emt, or second crop of hay, had
already grown high, but our host being a gentleman of
large property and vast hospitality, aUowed us to plunge
recklessly through the high grass of the orchards tiU the
cherry-trees were reached. There, then, were the cherries !
They shone against the sky, they dipped and danced
amongst the leaves. I was soon up in their midst,
clambering to the topmost branches. I once had thought
I could not have enough of cherries, but soon found I was
likely to have too many, so stayed to contemplate the scene
118

Summer in the Prattigau
and do penance for former abuse of Lamartine's account of
Swiss scenery. That gentleman, in one of his poems,
described glaciers descending into oak forests. I almost
found he spoke the truth, for here, as I stood up among
the branches of my cherry-tree, I looked back and saw
the broad white stretches of the SUvretta glacier gleaming
through the leaves. It was hke a thing one sees in
dreams. Only one doesn't dream on such occasions, and
I soon returned to my pickings, rapidly filling with fruit
the long round basket which was strapped upon me. The
others were up in the trees too, laughing and singing.
The chUd lay rolling in the grass. Even the sober Julius
had dropped his mask of habitual gloom. I picked and
picked, and looked around and beyond, across the Pratti
gau, all swimming as it were in a green bath of heat, then
up to the snowy mountains, and back to the church and
my new friends. The other ladies of the party soon
wearied of their labours, and only the Stadthalter and
Juhus, the ladders, baskets, and I, continued the " Jagd."
All down soft meadow paths we went, picking and tasting,
and cracking jokes, and whilst stretching up to the
branches we shook down an occasional almond-bug —
most loathsome of insects — in the place of a cherry.
Sometimes we sat down in the cool grass to rest, then
wandered off to new trees, tiU at last our baskets were
fuU. Then we trailed lazily back up the road, dragging
our spoils with us, tiU we reached the gate of the church
yard. " There he our dead so quietly," said Herr Brosi,
looking in through the wooden doors. " And there are
few stones, you will see ; there are mostly only flowers to
show where they lie." So I looked, and saw within the
cool tall grasses the thick pink rosebuds, too fat and lazy
to bloom outright, but rolling on their stalks and scenting
119

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
the stiU air with sweetness, and there were white ever
lastings, sword-grass, and periwinkles. I expressed a
great wish to enter, but the gate was locked, and there
was no other way for it than to chmb in over the waU.
So the Stadthalter put his ladder against it, and Juhus
placed his somehow on the other side, and we clambered
over into the shade — there where the people who have
lived their lives in the wooden village up above among
the cherry-trees come to lie when hfe is over, side by side,
with no stones and only the flowers above them. We
got into the tiny church, and went up to the window above
the altar to see a bit of old stained glass, which, by some
curious chance, is still preserved there — a Muttergottes
with streaming yellow hair and gorgeous crimson robe —
very old, very austere, and richly coloured. The little
church is cool and quiet. Many generations have come
and gone through its doors. It has been Catholic and now
is Protestant, but aU have worshipped the God who
gave them life up there in sunny Conters. A feeling of
intensely living, yet calm happiness, had spread through
me — perhaps the black cherries had mixed the sweetness
of their juice in my brain. We scrambled back over the
high wall across the ladders, and when I remarked that we
had broken that wall together with the laws, the Stadt
halter reassured me cheerfully by remarking that he was a
Schul-kamarad of the Pfarrer.
We were extremely hot, but that mattered little. By
the help of currant syrup I soon cooled down in the house.
It was four o'clock, and I was weU aware that the time
for departure had come. Coffee was then produced,
together with very strong cheese, currant jelly, butter,
and bread. My tastes were remembered (to my despair),
and a large cup of thick clotted cream put before me.
The pretty Lucia had been to sleep and the baby was a
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Summer in the Prattigau
little cross, its mother flustered. In fact, there was the
general sense of a hot day of pleasure coming to an end.
But this is never to be despised. Herr Brosi was doing
up the cherries. Most of them we took with us, but some
went to Paris, to which city Conters exports much fruit.
I wonder who it was who brought them there, and whether
the cherries that I had gathered that day tasted sweet
on some French dinner-table.
The sun was stiU shining hotly over Conters when we
left it and started homewards down the hill. The family
walked down a bit of the road with us, as far as where the
cherry-trees grow in their orchards. Then they turned
back. Bits of shadow were creeping across the road ;
the beech wood was all in shade ; but beyond blazed
Prattigau, and a locomotive steamed along the line. We
joined the post at Kiiblis, and followed it and all its string
of carriages up in a cloud of dust. Some German men
and ladies in various shades of stiff and unbecoming
alpaca garments such as that nation delights to wear,
were admiring the Bahn. The vaUey was heavy with
heat-mist ; but above Conters, the peaks of Casanna stood
blue and calm, their great rocks stooping as it were across
the forest to kiss the quiet viUage. A thin young moon
was melting in the liquid sky above the tower of Saas.
As the vast lumbering diligence, followed by its train of
lesser carriages, bowled heavily round the bridge near
Mezzaselva, an insignificant and squeaking locomotive
bustled under it — and this was Progress. I saw them
together, the old and the new, for the last time, and the
sight depressed me. I should have liked at that minute
to be back in the cherry-trees, forgetful of trains, and
desirous of cherries only.
The sun cast a ruddy light of orange gold across the
valley, across the hills, across the men's faces on the line,
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
and upon the trees and grasses. All seemed melting
together in the great melting-pot of the sun-god. We
stayed at Klosters to water the horse, then started off
again, slowly, in the train of the post. Calm had come
again — the chUl of evening settling down after the July
day, and darkness creeping steadily across the world.
How still it was ! The very dust upon the road seemed
fallen asleep. The clover leaves closed themselves ; the
trees lost their shadows. The bells of the horses rang
continuously, and so monotonously. A postiUion
hummed from time to time a disconnected Jodel. The
German traveUers had closed their carriages. At Laret
all light was faded from the valley and the mountains.
The ridges were cut out black and dreamy against the
sallow sky, and the stars were beginning to stand forth in
the blue.
" There are few stars to-night," remarked my friend.
" It will probably be fine to-morrow. Many stars in the
sky is a bad sign." She was quite pleased and willing to
exile the stars from heaven for the sake of her hay.
A great shining planet rose over the Seehorn. It shone
and rippled in the waters of the lake as we drove by.
Frau Hold got out at Hohwald. The chUd howled dis
mally — it did not know much why ; but I suppose was
tired and forgot. How strange that seemed. To be
tired and to forget the day at Conters ! M. S.

122

AMONG THE ORCHARDS OF TYROL
The little vUlage of Schluderns stands at the meeting-
point of many ways, upon the extreme western boundary
of Tyrol. Ascending northward, one road crosses the
windy Heath of St. Valentine, and bifurcates at Nauders
for the Lower Engadine, whence it leads in due course up
to Samaden and Maloja ; while its other branch descends
the gorge of Finstermunz, whereby one reaches Landeck
and the Arlberg railway. The same road, plunging
southward across Vintscbgau, threads the vine-clad
slopes of Meran, and thence follows the Adige by Botzen
to towered Verona. By the north-west, starting from
Schluderns, the traveUer gains Switzerland through
Minister Thai, and the bleak bear-haunted forests of
Buffalora. If he chooses the south-western route, he
breaks at once into the narrow vaUey which conducts
him by the Stelvio Pass, beneath impending glaciers of
the Ortler range, to Italy's majestic ValteUine, where
Adda races through leagues and leagues of vineyards to
the Lake of Como.
It is clear that the position of Schluderns is one of geo
graphical importance, now that the high central Alps from
which the tributaries of the Po, the Adige, and the
Danube descend, are being traversed in every direction by
tourists. And yet its name is hardly known ; for the
simple reason that until the summer of 1885 it boasted of
123

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
no inn. An isolated hostelry, a single house called
Spondinig, set down amid a waste of dwarf wUlows, sand,
and boulders, at the distance of twenty minutes from this
village, has usurped the traffic which should naturaUy
have fallen to Schluderns. Often have I groaned, and
probably have other traveUers also, at the necessity
which forced me to spend a night in so forlorn a " lodge
in some lone wilderness " as is Spondinig. For, to tell
the truth, one of the principal charms of Schluderns is
that it smiles, a visible oasis in the desert. Above, the
vaUey expands into bare, open grass-land. Below, the
inundations of the Etzsch have spread perennial barren
ness. Itself, nestled against the sides of sheltering slopes
descending from the Weisskugel, can boast of broad and
liberaUy watered meadows, where the Tyrolese mares
and colts love to roam ; while its quaint old dweUings are
embosomed in orchards of apple, pear, and walnut trees.
In one of these orchards, at the end of the vUlage, with a
striking distant view of the Ortler, stands a white farm
house, which has recently been converted into a hotel
under the name of Schweizerhof . It pretends to nothing
beyond airy rooms, cleanliness, wholesome fare, and hos
pitality. Swiss folk keep it who have long phed their
trade on the Hospiz of the Fluela in Canton Graubiinden.
To introduce this halting-place to traveUers is one of my
objects. They may be as glad as I was to light upon that
old-fashioned Stube, with its projecting Gothic window
in one corner, and a stove of green tiles in another, low
cross-legged tables in the middle, and broad settles of
walnut wood fixed against the paneUed walls. Such a
room presents a pleasant contrast to the dreary salle-a-
manger which renders life burdensome in commonplace
wayside caravanserais. It is difficult to say why, out of
many Tyrolese villages, upon a summer journey, one un-
124

THE ORTLER FROM THE STELVIO ROAD.

Among the Orchards of Tyrol
pretending hamlet, with no claim to renown, should
make so agreeable an impression as to leave a lasting
memory. In the case of Schluderns I think the reason is
that one can scarcely reach it except on routes which
render its deep-embowered orchards grateful to the sense
by contrast. Of all mountain passes Buffalora (or Ofener-
berg) is the most severe and solitary. Nothing can be
imagined more bleak than the Valentiner Heide. The
Etzsch Thai from Meran ascends through a double row
of barren hiUs in a river-plagued trough, where the cruel
fight of man with nature seems to be symbolised in a never-
ending series of ghastly, blood-bedabbled crucifixes.
Even after the subhmities of the Stelvio, which is beyond
comparison the grandest in scenery, as it is the highest of
aU carriage-passes in the Alps, this verdure of soft lawns
and interlaced fruit-trees affords repose to nerves that
have been overwrought by that ideal beauty.
The main object of interest at Schluderns is a feudal
castle caUed the Churburg, which rises above the viUage,
commanding a superb prospect over Upper Vintschgau
and the Ortler range. To its antique walls and jutting
outworks the leafy tops of pear trees and swaying boughs
of walnuts, long untouched by pruning hands, sweep up
ward from the home-garth. The castle has always been
inhabited, and is stiU occupied by counts who take their
titles from Churburg and from many other Tyrolese
strongholds. Their shield, " argent a fess dancettee
gules," quarters innumerable coats, among which I noticed
one of singular beauty — " argent, three wings expanded
azure." These arms adorn the porcelain stoves, and are
painted on the shutters of the bunding. They may also
be seen, together with the eagle of the Empire, emblazoned
on the battlements and gateways of the old walled town
of Glurns. This proves the importance of the house of
125

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Trapp (for so the Counts of Churburg are named) in their
immediate neighbourhood. Glurns, which hes at no
great distance from Schluderns beyond the Etzsch, is an
interesting specimen of the feudal burgh as distinguished
from an open village. Its waUs and the towers above its
gates are stUl intact. The stragghng street, dilapidated
homesteads, and enclosed gardens of this medieval relic
weU deserve a visit. But we must return to the castle.
The main structure is built about a square arcaded court,
round which run open gaUeries, with piUars of rudely
sculptured marble in Byzantine style. From these
gaUeries the suites of apartments open in two upper
stories. This central block is detached from the lodgings
of the grooms and servants, the chapel, guard-room,
entrance-tower, and stabhngs, by a grassy alley ; while a
flight of broad stone steps, screened by strong walls, or
curtains, slit with loop-holed windows, leads from its
chambers into a slumbering pleasance on the southern
side. Here orchard and flower-garden melt into each
other, terrace after terrace, as the steep ground breaks
away towards the viUage. It is a fascinating labyrinth
to stroll in ; a sohtude inviting us to dream of " ladies
dead and lovely knights," who once were wont to pace
these balustraded alleys. After a visit to the armoury
above in the main building, we can fiU our fancy with
another set of visions, and behold the Counts of Churburg
riding in fuU panoply to war beneath the arches of their
portcuUised barbican. Few private houses contain so
rich a collection of complete suits of mail, aU of them well
preserved, belonging to known members of one family,
and dating from the early Middle Ages. The changes in
armour, both of man and horse, from the Crusades to the
Renaissance, may here be studied. Weapons of all
periods and kinds, damascened sword-blades, huge two-
126

Among the Orchards of Tyrol
handled glaives, daggers enriched with Itahan nieUo,
quaint German baskets for chiseUed rapier-hUts, heraldic
bearings side by side with crucifixes graven deep on gorget
or cuirass, crossbows of wood inlaid with ivory, clumsy
arquebuses, long-muzzled pistols and triangular stUettos,
gauntlets and helmets of divers fashions, not to speak of
lances, partisans, and halberds, crowd the waUs in every
space left vacant by weU-burnished suits of knightly steel.
In short, an amateur of armour wiU be repaid a visit to
Schluderns if only he gain access to this chamber. Prob
ably he wiU be introduced into the armoury by the
daughter or the grand-daughter of that Josele Pichler
who first ascended Ortler, and to whom a pillar in white
marble has been erected on the Stelvio. Both of these
women are denizens of the castle, from the ramparts of
which they view the peak connected with their name.
I have written enough, perhaps, in recommendation of
Schluderns to traveUers who wish to break their journey
in this portion of the Upper Etzsch Thai.
I wiU only add, with regard to mountain excursions in
the neighbourhood, that it is an excellent station for the
ascent of the Weisskugel. J. A. S.

127

MELCHIOR RAGETLI; OR, THE LIFE OF A
SWISS PORTER
Part I
Before I took up my residence in Switzerland I used
often to wonder how that useful and important func
tionary, the concierge in a Swiss hotel, obtained his
education. The famUiarity with many languages dis
played by Swiss porters, and their acquaintance with
the ways and wants of different nations, struck me as
singular. They could not have afforded to spend much
money on their early training ; and yet they seemed to
have been everywhere, and to know a httle about every
thing in Europe.
Lately I have been in a position to obtain much in
formation from the men themselves regarding their past
lives. And I think it may be interesting to condense
this into a narrative, which shall explain every step in a
porter's career from boyhood to the period when he stands
in middle life with dignity at the entrance of some palatial
hotel hke the Schweizerhof at Lucerne.
It wiU be convenient to give the hero of my tale a
name and birthplace, although I must premise that he
is purely a fictitious personage. At the same time I
shaU be careful to record no incident which has not been
related to me by some particular person as a detaU of
his own experience. 128

Melchior Ragetli

We wiU suppose, then, that he was born in 1860 at
Emsenau, in the Rhine vaUey, above the ancient town
of Chur. Emsenau is a large viUage surrounded by broad,
open meadows and orchards — on the one side sweeping
away to the turbulent river, on the other ascending gently
to those solemn woods of pine and larch which climb the
mountain-sides, untU the summer pastures of the Alps
are reached, with crags and tracts of snow to crown them.
The commune or Gemeinde of Emsenau owns a wide
extent of cultivated ground, large forests, and Alps suffi
cient to maintain a couple of thousand cows. Each of
the burghers receives an aUotment of nearly three acres,
which he holds during his lifetime. He is also entitled
to cut wood enough from the common forests to supply
his homestead through the year ; and he may send a
certain number of cows to graze freely on the Alps in
summer. Yet the inhabitants of Emsenau are poor ; for
it has often been observed that wealthy communes do not
encourage industry. The men marry too early on the ex
pectation of the aUowances made them by the Gemeinde.
The father of my hero was a man who had coUected a
smaU competency in his youth by the somewhat singular
industry of smugghng Swiss subjects over the frontier
into Italy. He was, in fact, a secret recruiting-agent for
King Bomba, and received handsome fees for each stal
wart Graubiindener whom he added to the Neapolitan
army. Military service under foreign Governments being
prohibited by the laws of the Confederation, Christopher
Ragetli had to conduct his men by the most precipitous
paths and inaccessible passes he could think of. Upon
one occasion, as he told me, he marched two days and a
night without halting. He is now a vigorous man of
sixty, spare and sinewy, with grizzled hair and piercing
black eyes. 129 i

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Before 1860 the Ragetlis had already been blessed with
two sons, whom they christened respectively Caspar and
Balthazar. Accordingly, when the subject of this history
arrived upon the scene, he received the name of Melchior.
These brothers are stUl caUed " The Three Kings," or
" The Three Wise Men of the East," by their friends ;
and I may mention that aU three of them have been at
some time porters. In the course of twelve years, two
sisters and another brother were added to the famUy.
Christopher Ragetli buUt his own house upon his own
land with some of King Bomba's Neapolitan ducats. It
is a pleasant wooden dwelling, standing in an apple-
orchard outside the viUage. A vine has been trained
over the whole of the south front, and in June the garden
blossoms with magnificent white hlies. There is a big
barn for hay and firewood communicating with the house
by a long open gallery. One of the ground-floor rooms
is used as a carpenter's workshop ; and in the largest
bedroom stands a loom at which the mother and daughters
weave cloth for famUy wear. Such a homestead reahses
the ideal of peasant proprietorship. In it, although there
is little money, frugal plenty abounds. Nothing has to
be bought except coffee, sugar, spice, salt, and such things
for the table, with a few indispensable articles of clothing
and instruments of labour which cannot be fashioned at
home. When shall we in England arrive at the like
state of hving, so earnestly and wisely desired by Mr.
Ruskin ?
The people of Emsenau are Catholic, and use the
Romanisch language. In its purest form, as spoken by
the natives of the Vorder Rheinthal, Romanisch (or
Ladinisch) is a weU-preserved dialect of rustic Latin.
In the Rhine vaUey, where Emsenau is situated, it has,
however, been largely adulterated with German, whUe
130

Melchior Ragetli

in the Engadine it tends more and more to assimUation
with Itahan. There are several varieties of the dialect
to be found in isolated vaUeys of the Grisons, aU of
them testifying to the long occupation of this Rheetic
province by the Romans. The Romanisch population
speak with pride of their tongue as the key to languages.
There is truth in this boast ; for Romanisch exhibits a
remarkable richness of vowel sounds, which enables those
who use it to catch with ease the accent of other races,
while its vocabulary has much in common with French,
Itahan, and Spanish. In the schools German is taught,
and sermons are frequently preached in that language.
Young Melchior was thus bilingual from his boyhood ;
and between the ages of seven and sixteen, when he
entered and left school, he had also acquired a third
tongue. The inhabitants of Graubiinden speak, for the
most part, German ; about 30,000 speak Romanisch, and
a smaller section, belonging to the valleys of Mesocco,
Bregaglia, and Poschiavo, use Italian. Now the same
education is given in aU districts ; and among the Itahan
Graubiindeners there are both Protestant and Italian
villages. It is therefore a frequent custom for German
famihes to send one or two of their sons during the winter
into an Italian family, receiving an equal number of
Itahan children in return. Business communications,
which are continuaUy going on across the passes of Ber
nina, Maloja, and Bernardino, facUitate this exchange ;
and thus, without any additional expense except that of
the journey, two families may obtain for their lads the
advantage of acquiring a foreign language. It seems that
Christopher Ragetli, in his smuggling days, formed an
intimate tie of comradeship with a hardy chamois-hunter
of the Val Mesocco ; and, since his friend had two sons
of the same age as Balthazar and Melchior, the bargain
131 i 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
was struck. He met Antonio Palmarin — such was the
man's name — at Splugen, taking the two Italian boys
back with him to Emsenau, and entrusting his own to
Palmarin's care. One long winter spent at St. Bernar
dino in the snow-drifts sufficed to give Melchior and his
brother a fair acquaintance with Italian. They had
plenty of opportunities at home to use and improve this
knowledge ; for a large percentage of summer work
people in the Rhine vaUey are Italians.
It should be mentioned that the schools in mountain
vUlages are only open during the long Alpine winter —
that is, from the beginning of October tUl the foUowing
Easter. This, though it somewhat retards the scholar's
advance in learning, is exceUent for his health. All
through the summer, lads and boys tend sheep or cows
upon the fields, help their fathers to make hay, roam
in the woods, and get their fill of air and sunshine. The
schoolmasters have gone to their own vUlages, where they
mow and gather in the crops like other peasants to whose
households they belong. Such being the arrangements
for Swiss schooling in the mountain districts, a handy lad
of fourteen or fifteen may have the glorious opportunity
of being taken to the breezy pastures where the cattle
pass their summer. He wiU go as help to the Senn, or
head herdsman, whose business it is to collect the milk
and make the cheese for several famihes. Or he may
be employed as goatherd, or be used to prevent the cows
from straying beyond boundaries. No English child,
setting out for a hohday at the sea-side, departs from
home with a keener sense of exhUaration than little
Melchior did one June morning in 1874, under the care
of his father's friend, the Senn. They were bound for
those high meadows above Panix, in the Vorder Rhein-
thal, which belong to Emsenau. It is a great event, this
132

Melchior Ragetli

translation of the cattle from their winter quarters to
the highlands, 6,000 feet above the sea, above the forest
line, within sight of glittering glaciers, and under over
hanging crags of mighty precipices. The whole village
is astir long before daybreak ; and the animals, who know
well what a good time is in store for them, are as im
patient as their masters. The procession sets forth in
a long train, cows lowing, beUs tinkling, herdsmen shout
ing, old men and women giving the last directions about
their favourite beasts to the herdsmen. Rude pictures
of the Zug auf die Alpen, as it is called, may sometimes
be seen pasted, like a frieze or bas-relief, along the low
panelled walls of mountain cottages. These are the work,
in many cases, of the peasants themselves, who write the
names of the cattle over the head of each, attach pre
posterously huge beUs to the proud leaders of the herd,
and burden the hinds with vast loads of bread and
household gear, and implements for making cheese.
How many happy memories of summer holidays have
been worked into those clumsy but symbolic forms by
uncouth fingers in the sUence of winter evenings, when
possibly Phyllis sat by and wondered at her Damon's
draughtsmanship ! It takes two whole days and nights
at least to get from Emsenau to the Panixer Alp. But
when this journey is accomplished, the human part of
the procession instals itself delightfully in httle wooden
huts, which aUow the pure air from the glaciers to whistle
through every cranny. The tired cows spread them
selves over pastures which the snows have lately left,
feeding ravenously on the delicious young grass, starred
with gentians and primulas, and hosts of bright-eyed tiny
flowers. And then begins a rare time for men and cattle.
Auf den Alpen droben
Ist ein herrliches Leben !
133

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
" On the Alps above there, is a glorious life !" This
is the opening distich of a favourite village song from
Tyrol, which the Swiss have appropriated. Indeed, the
phrase is true to fact. For through those lovely summer
months, untU the snow descends again in September, each
day is passed there under the open skies, basking upon
heathery slopes far, far above the vaUey-mists and dust
and noise of tourists, bathing in sunlight, drinking the
rich fresh milk, sleeping lightly, rising early, with a
canopy of heaven above, and the majestic pageant of
the mountains unrolled on every side. A Graubiinden
boy finds no formidable enemy even in bad weather.
He is Nature's child enough, shaggUy clad enough, and
warm-blooded enough to bear the snow-storms of July
and the drenching rains of August with indifference.
Every aspect of his existence on the Alp is a new joy to
him ; and I never heard that he caught cold there. Al
though the Swiss are not a sentimental, or in any high
sense an imaginative race, it is no wonder that a couple
of summers spent thus at the most impressible period of
growth should instU into young minds that vague, deep-
clinging passion for their hiUs which is so famous. If
there are not more poets among the people it is not for
the lack of poetic elements in their common life. Perhaps
the reason is that such elements are too abundant ; just
as Venice, the exact opposite of Graubiinden, has notice
ably produced no poet. What is incontestable, however,
is that this free life, in communion with open Nature,
among the sohtudes of the grandest mountains, has helped
to form Swiss character. It has implanted self-reliance
and the love of liberty in stalwart bosoms, while it has
no less certainly contributed to the nerve and fibre of
manly limbs. I also should derive the sedate, cautious,
almost rehgious attitude of Swiss folk, face to face with
134

Melchior Ragetli

the great forces of the world, from solemn and inspiring
influences in their boyhood. Some one told me of a
young Enghsh scholar who professed that, if the globe
were depopulated, he should like to repeople it by breed
ing from Swiss guides. The idea was not a bad one.
The summers of 1864 and 1865 passed thus upon the
Panixer uplands, helped to transform Melchior from a
chUd into a sinewy and vigorous youth. He was tall
and spare, taking after his father, but more broad-
shouldered ; and the hawk's glance of Christopher Ragetli
had assumed in him a sort of stag-hke wildness. Living
bare-headed in rain and sunshine, his thick brown hair
grew into a wavy tangle, rising from the centre of the
forehead, and sweeping in heavy billows over low broad
brows almost down to the deep-cut caverns of his eyes.
He was indeed a striking lad, as he strode across the
hillsides with that long slouching tread of the true moun
taineer, which covers so much ground and never tires.
Though alert enough and indefatigable, Melchior was not
so supple or so agile in his movements as the men of our
Scotch Highlands. The Swiss of Graubiinden tend to
massiveness ; and Melchior, in spite of his stag-like face
and figure, and the proud toss of his head upon the firm
elastic throat, was buUt too solidly and knit too tightly
for flexibility or speed. But see him half-way up what
looked like an inaccessible crag, or watch him getting a
larch stem of twenty feet in length and six feet (average)
in girth ready to launch down a torrent, and you would
admire the address with which that ponderous strength
is used. Then might you understand why the Austrian
and Burgundian chivalry feU hke swathes of grass before
such mowers in the fifteenth century.
How was he fed at home ? should here perhaps be
asked. I am prepared to answer that question with
135

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
minute particulars. The Rageths, though not wealthy,
were substantial peasants. They owned a farm of about
£2,000 worth, which the father, mother, and eldest son
worked in common, receiving occasional aid from the
younger children. This made them better off than many
of their neighbours. Education costing almost nothing
to the Swiss, the Gemeinde supplying fuel, and the
women of the family weaving sufficient homespun from
the wool of their own sheep to clothe the men, it was
easy to give the chUdren a wholesome diet. The first
meal, taken early in the morning, before school-time, in
cluded coffee, bread, a mash of maize and milk, and
cheese. After school, the boys always found a hunch
of bread, which they consumed whUe waiting for their
dinner. This consisted of soup, potatoes, and perhaps
some bacon. Pudding, or Mehlspeisen, of various sorts,
completed the bill of fare. Among these, what the people
call Pitzokel — that is, something like thin pancakes cut
into long narrow ribbands — was conspicuous. In summer,
vegetables were added from the garden ; but peasants
do not greatly care for such rehsh to their food. I have
often heard them say that fruit or salad niitzt nichts
does not help to build a man up. Supper repeated
breakfast. These three meals, it wiU be seen, were
almost whoUy without animal food. Wine and beer,
too, were conspicuous by their absence. Christopher
Ragetli kept neither in the ceUar, but drank his glass
from time to time at the Wirthschaft. They made an
effervescing cider out of mixed apples and grapes at home,
and distUled excellent medicinal spirits from the roots
of the gentian. But these hquors were bottled and
reserved for great occasions. On Sundays, meat was
added to the mid-day meal, in the form of dried hams
of beef, mutton, and chamois, sausages of pork and beef
136

Melchior Ragetli
mixed, aU of which were prepared at home during the
winter. It may here be remarked that the gediegenes
Fleisch of Graubiinden, which consists of joints of raw
beef, carefuUy smoked in the chimney, cured with salt
and spice, and finaUy dried in the cold clear winter air,
is excellent, nourishing, and dehcate.
It must not be thought that aU the folk in Emsenau
lived so weU as the Ragetlis. Some families subsisted
on almost nothing but potatoes and weak coffee. One
poor feUow, who has now developed into a hearty man,
told me that before he left home he hardly ever tasted
bread or cheese or meat, and that he was a mere hungry
skeleton with skin upon it. At school he had so little
flesh and blood that when he cut his finger to the bone
it did not bleed. This man also told me a strange tale,
which I will relate. There was a family in the same
village, as indigent as his own, but reckless and wild.
The long, gaunt, lanky sons grew up like beasts of prey,
stealing eggs, climbing into stables and sucking the cows'
udders. One of them, more franticaUy famished than
his brethren, confessed to having hacked with his knife
a large slice out of the quarters of a richer neghbour's
live pig. Whether the young brigand cooked this
Abyssinian beefsteak or ate the delicious morsel raw, I
forgot to ask. Another of the same brood used to supply
himself with animal food by drinking the blood from
slaughtered beasts, whenever he got permission to indulge
his appetite that way. I was informed that this com
parative vampire developed into the stoutest and come-
liest feUow of the set ; and indeed blood, drunk warm
from the veins of a sheep or bullock, ought to be highly
nutritious. Has not a cure for consumption been estab
lished in America upon the principle ? A httle of such
diet will go a long way to support life.
137

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
When Melchior completed his sixteenth year he left
school. At this time he knew Itahan fairly, and could
speak and write German with correctness. He was well
grounded in grammar, arithmetic, and Swiss history. He
had been taught to compose business letters, and to draft
the simpler forms of contracts. Singing also he had
learned, and was beginning to develop a baritone voice
of considerable strength and richness. Altogether, it
must be aUowed that he had received a very exceUent
education. The five summer months, or long vacation,
enabled him to learn all that a Graubiinden farmer needs
to know regarding the treatment of cattle and horses,
mowing and storing hay, sowing and reaping, felling and
trimming trees ; and as this branch of his education was
carried on under his father's eyes, he had been incidentaUy
initiated into many interesting secrets of woodcraft, shoot
ing, and so forth. The question now was, what line of
life he would select. The farm of the Rageth famUy did
not need Melchior's labour. It was already sufficiently
cared for by his father, mother, and eldest brother. He
might become a carpenter, or go into service as Stall-
knecht on some distant property, or study to be a school
master, or finally select the trade of porter. Such were
the four principal alternatives which presented them
selves to his mind. Melchior chose the last of these
industries ; and this may be considered singular, when
we remember what a fine creature the youth was, and
how he had been exercised in open-air employment.
But the fact is that to every lad in Emsenau porters
represent the unknown world of cities and of alien lands.
Porters are for Emsenauer boyhood, in the midst of land
locked Switzerland, what sailors are for boys in sea-girt
England. They come home after six months' foreign
service with plenty of cash in their pockets, clothes of
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Melchior Ragetli
novel cut, hair curled and pommaded after the French
fashion, a new language, and tales of adventure in big
towns. They swagger, treat their village-comrades to a
glass of wine, and pose like world-experienced heroes.
Most of them have crossed the sea to London. All have
something to teU of Paris or of Nice, of Rome, or Vienna,
or Naples. I think it was an Oberlander's narrative of
his life in Venice, that miraculous city floating on the
sea, which made Melchior resolve to be a porter. And
for Venice, though he never went there, he still enter
tains the vision of a dream. He had no other chance of
obtaining so much familiarity with men and manners as
the hfe of a hotel-porter offered to his fancy. None but
porters changed from place to place, and learned their
business the better the more they moved about. If he
became a carpenter, he would fashion wood into sohd
houses and plane it into beautiful paneUing, at wages
here in his own country. If he took to farm-service, he
would tend cattle and horses, and drive carts about the
Graubiinden roads. To be a schoolmaster was an attrac
tive prospect ; but this meant more money spent on
further education than his father could afford ; and
besides, the schoolboy knew what schools are, and had
no great desire to win a scanty pittance in some distant
vUlage hke his home. On one occasion of his youth he
thought of entering a seminary and qualifying himself
for the priesthood. His maternal uncle was Bishop of
Chur — that is possible in the Cathohc Church : and occa
sional visits to the stately palace on the hUl above the
old Roman city had inflamed his imagination. But
Melchior did not love the scent of incense, and already
felt that women ought to play a part in his hfe. His
father, too, reminded him that the ecclesiastical garb
was not sure to carry him, like Fortunatus's carpet, into
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
a palace and a throne in some cathedral. This momen
tary longing, therefore, was rejected by his wiser nature ;
and, moreover, he thirsted to mix with men of all kinds ;
the seminary smelt staler to his nostrils than a barrack
or a prison. Only a porter's career offered opportunities
of seeing the world, of enjoying his vigorous youth in
various phases of experience, and of amassing money
enough to make marriage with an Emsenauer girl at the
age of thirty possible. This is what Swiss youths look
forward to : fourteen or fifteen years spent in the stream
of life, capital secured, and then domestic comfort on a
portion of their own land in their own village with a
wife of their own kindred. The further course of this
narrative wiU show in what way they work the problem
out. Melchior accordingly determined to select the
porter's trade, and carried his magnificent adolescence
into that humble industry. SentimentaUy, we may
think that he might better have remained in Arcady.
But his choice had something of adventure and ambition
in it.
There are several degrees of porters in hotels of the
Swiss type. The highest of these is the concierge, or
haU-porter, who is responsible for the main conduct of
the house in its relations with the outer world. The
second is the omnibus-porter, who goes backwards and
forwards to trains and steamboats, and has considerable
influence in bringing strangers to the house. Small
hotels, managed upon economical principles, combine
these two functionaries in a single person. Lowest in
the grade come the Hausknechte, or floor-porters, an
swering to our " boots," who are principaUy concerned
with luggage, cleaning shoes, carrying fuel, and sweeping
up. Primitive inns may be found where one man does the
work of all three kinds together. But the broad distinc-
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Melchior Ragetli

tions I have indicated exist in every first-class hotel
organized upon a large scale of service.
Melchior had to begin at the bottom as Hausknecht,
and to work his way graduaUy upwards. In order to
secure a place as omnibus-porter or concierge, it was
necessary that he should know some English and French ;
for in either of these positions he would have to deal with
strangers who might not be able to speak German.
Every new language gained adds something to the stock-
in-trade of a porter ; and lads who have no ready money
for a foreign journey are bound to earn enough by manual
labour to purchase the opportunity of acquiring these
indispensables for more remunerative service. Many
men who have not had the energy to seek these languages
in foreign lands remain subordinates, and win small wages
through their lifetime.
It was not difficult for a feUow of his build, six feet
high and strong as a horse, to find situations. Melchior
worked for three years as under-porter, during the winter
at Davos-Platz, and during the summer at St. Moritz
Bad, obeying the orders of upper-porters whom his father
knew. He brushed clothes, blacked boots, cleaned lamps,
shifted furniture, beat carpets, ran errands, and dis
charged the myriad indescribable duties of an odd-man
in overworked establishments. It was a hard life, and
to our sense of such things somewhat ignoble, when com
pared with the simple but dignified occupations of a
peasant. Yet he had chosen this trade, and he now
obtained an insight into its most complicated machinery.
The whole organism of hotels, in which he was destined
to spend many years, and from which he meant to draw
a little fortune, lay open to his eyes. Nor had he any
responsibUity, so long as he did faithfuUy what he was
bidden. Melchior, at this stage of his career, won the
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
credit of being a stout, honest, active, willing, and intelli
gent servant, which afterwards stood him in good stead.
He learned his business as thoroughly as only a pennUess
peasant bent on gain can do. Moreover, he enjoyed
something of the novel experience which had attracted
him to the career of porter. It was nothing for the
lad of Emsenau to dance occasionaUy at the pubhc baUs
of Davos and St. Moritz. These dreary httle watering-
places seemed to his untutored eyes the centres of wUd
thriUing dissipation. He even learned to waltz ; and
after acquiring the habit, he began to circle with a finish
and precision which might have roused the envy of town-
bred mashers. No better dancing can be seen in London
or Vienna than the muscular and music-loving peasants
of the mountains display in their restrained and stately
style of rhythm. Money, too, was more plentiful with
Melchior now than of old times in his village. He could
drink a glass of wine or beer on Sundays over a game of
cards or skittles with companions. At this period of life
I think he learned to play cards — Tresett and Yass —
and for the first time ordered a suit of clothes at a tailor's.
Earher he had worn his mother's homespun, fabricated
into the semblance of coat and trousers by a Kleider-
macherin, or female clothes-maker.
After passing three years in this fashion, and forming
valuable acquaintances, Melchior resolved to learn French.
He had about two hundred francs of earnings in hand at
the end of the time ; but his father could not help him
with introductions into French famUies. The difficulty
of taking the first step in a new country deters many
young feUows of Melchior's stamp from risking what will
afterwards secure them profit. The most fortunate are
those who possess family connections in foreign lands.
And the Swiss are so distributed over Europe in many
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Melchior Ragetli

minor branches of trading industry that opportunities
not unfrequently offer for a young man to obtain new
languages at the price of personal service in some house
of business. Melchior had not that chance. So, quite
practically, he made his mind up to take a third-class
ticket for Geneva, and to push his fortune there. Letters
of recommendation were supphed by friends, and his own
stalwart personality seemed to the young man a suffi
cient introduction. I ought previously to have men
tioned that he was not liable for mihtary service. At
the age of nineteen he had duly presented himself for
examination and enlistment among the candidates of his
year. It happened, ' however, that just then the Con
federation was not in need of more soldiers than the exact
necessary. Accordingly, the army surgeons pronounced
Melchior unfit for service on account of a very trifling
defect in his eyesight. He had, indeed, at the termina
tion of some childish fever, been unable to distinguish
objects quite clearly at a certain distance. This never
proved of the least practical annoyance to him ; nor
would it in a season of more urgency have excused him
from mUitary duties. As it was, his freedom left him
at liberty to pursue whatever course of life he chose,
without hindrance.
He soon found a place in a second-class Genevan hotel,
with a large restaurant attached to it. Men of all
nationalities, refugees from Russia, Poland, Germany,
and France, used to meet there ; and the one language
in use was French. Melchior's rather hybrid French,
which he does not speak with Parisian purity, may be
ascribed to his training in the " Croix de Savoie." At
first he filled the place of odd-man,, and spent much of
his time in scouring dishes and helping to serve in the
restaurant. Afterwards, when the superintendent of the
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
ceUar fell Ul, he was chosen, for his probity, to take that
duty. That happened in November, and he worked
among casks and bottles during the winter. It cost him
an attack of rheumatism in the legs, which became
chronic ; but he learned much that was useful concerning
the treatment of wine. His pocket at the same time
profited ; for a ceUar-master, however honest he may be,
has ample opportunities of tasting the liquors under his
charge, and wise masters do not scrutinize too narrowly.
De minimis non curat lex is a maxim of wide apphca
tion ; and we know in England that a butler who dis
creetly helps himself, while he prevents the world from
cheating us, is a most valuable servant. On one occa
sion, when Melchior's rheumatism grew intolerable, he
took a bottle of old cognac up to bed, and thought to cure
himself by drinking it before the morning. Next day
he was obliged to caU a doctor in, who told him that a
second dose of the same kind would probably have
landed him in heart disease.
At the approach of spring Melchior felt the wandering
impulse strong upon him. He was losing his health and
making httle progress with the French language in that
Geneva ceUar. Hearing then that a marmiton or kitchen-
boy in the establishment wanted to go home to his native
village in Provence, he proposed that they should take
the trip together. Though each of them had saved some
money, they resolved to live upon the way like Wander-
Burschen, begging food and shelter. In order to abide
by this determination, Melchior sent his earnings home
to Emsenau. It speaks weU for the kind-heartedness of
folk in general that Melchior and his chum tramped on
the hard hoof from Geneva to Lyons, and from Lyons
down the Rhone to MarseUles, without spending a franc.
They did odd jobs at farm-houses, slept in stables, and
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Melchior Ragetli
enjoyed the pleasures of the open road, in that celestial
weather of a southern AprU. Between Vienne and
Avignon a good-natured bargeman gave them a lift in
his boat. Then came the land of ohves and weird stony
wildernesses, and, at last, oh, heavens ! the sea. That
is what Melchior had long dreamed of. So he made up
his mind to stay at Marseilles for a season ; and being
now well advanced in French, he got occupation in a
Swiss pastry-cook shop.
As weeks roUed by, the burning summer of Provence,
so different from those old summers on the Panixer Alps,
made him yearn for home. The object of his year's
wandering had been accomphshed : he knew French, and
his 200 francs had grown to over 400. In August, then,
he wrote to his old master at Davos, asking for the same
situation during the winter season. A favourable reply
came ; and he set forth on foot again, this time alone, for
Geneva. The money he had saved at MarseiUes was duly
despatched by post to Emsenau, and he kept only five
francs in his pocket. One night, near Tarascon, he slept
under a hedge, and waking very hungry about daybreak,
spied a pan of polenta at the door of a farmhouse. On
this he breakfasted without asking leave, and put the
pan back where he had found it. The way in which he
recounted this act of petty larceny makes me feel sure
that he has no worse sins of commission on his conscience.
I entertain a real affection and respect for Melchior,
knowing that he has the stuff of a strong, simple soldier,
dutiful and loyal, with fine spiritual fibres rooted in the
memories of his free mountain life in boyhood. He might
have fought at Miirten or have perished with the Swiss
Guard in the TuUeries. His porter's uniform, his poly
glot accomplishments, and petty shifts for earning money,
do not conceal from my sight what is heroic in the man.
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Therefore I have often reflected with sympathy upon the
hardships of that autumn journey back to Geneva. He
speaks little about it ; but the adventure must have been
very different from the holiday tour he made in spring
with his Provencal comrade. Folk were suspicious of his
outlandish French and gaunt sinewy length of limb. His
wUd eyes troubled them. Not unfrequently he found
himself run in, as a vagabond, by gendarmes, and had
to spend the night in the casual ward of noisome houses
of detention. He wore his shoes through, and suffered
from sore feet. A touch of fever also, caught by drinking
the marsh waters in the neighbourhood of Aries, reduced
his strength. Without yielding to fatigue or hunger, he
grew wistful, wondered whether he should faU iU by the
roadside, drooped beneath the steady sultry glare of sun
light. The grapes were ripening, and the vintage had
begun in many places. StiU Melchior trudged onward,
and when he reached the city he found it necessary to
take train for Chur.
Then followed a couple of dehghtful weeks at Emsenau.
His famUy made much of him, and his splendid con
stitution shook off the trifling ailments of the last tliree
months hke dew. In his turn he was able to pose as a
traveUed man, to treat his friends, and teU them stories
about the sea and ships. The masses of his Faun's hair
were cut and oUed, properly frisirt, and hideous to look
on. Yet the lads of Emsenau admired him hugely, and
the girls in church cast sidelong glances at the desirable
young fellow. It was on this occasion, I believe, that
he began to court a girl who had already struck his fancy
in their school-days, and who afterwards became his wife.
A good winter season at Davos brought the total capital
at his disposal up to a round sum of 500 francs. With
so much in his hand it was time to think of England.
146

THE SCHATZ ALP RUN DOWN TO DAVOS.

Melchior Ragetli

Four years had elapsed since he left school, and he was
now twenty. This part of life had been spent in acquir
ing the rudiments of his profession, and in buying a
knowledge of French. If he could but learn English also,
he would be able to compete for the higher places which
bring solid profit and consideration.

Part II
At this point I must interrupt the course of Melchior's
narrative in order to communicate some general facts
and more minute particulars concerning Swiss servants
in London. The Swiss are highly appreciated in a smaU
percentage of English famUies, because they take situa
tions at low wages. They are known to be honest, sober,
strong, simple, and industrious. The fact that they
come to learn a language is in their favour. This supplies
a kind of guarantee for steady conduct. But, on the
other hand, they understand nothing of our habits, can
not answer the door properly at first, have no natural
gifts for white-lying, and are certain to give warning
when they think their knowledge of Enghsh is sufficient.
Accordingly, it is only the less wealthy people, or those
who see but little company, from whom they find em
ployment. What the young Swiss dreams of, is to get
a situation in some private house of good condition. The
difficulty, however, of obtaining this prize is immense.
Unless he starts with a definite engagement, procured
by Englishmen who have taken interest in himself or
his famfly during some Swiss tour, he must live at his
own cost and answer aU the advertisements he reads in
the Times. Backwards and forwards, from the City to
the West End, from Wimbledon to Hampstead, he is
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
daUy on the march. Weeks shp by ; the money in his
slender purse grows smaU by degrees and beautifuUy less ;
at last he borrows from friends who have found a place,
and writes home for cash to pay these debts of honour.
At this point he is generaUy forced to take some situation
in public establishments, where the opportunities of
learning our language are limited. The cook-shops of
the Strand, the Charing Cross Hotel, and some of the
Swiss restaurants in the neighbourhood of Leicester
Square, afford him temporary refuge. This is the reason
why a Swiss porter's English is so cockneyfied, so coarse,
and so ludicrously defective in most cases. He has
picked it up oraUy in the bustle of the lowest drudge's
life. If he is fortunate, one of the many advertisers takes
him into service before the waters of the great city close
over him. But even then his lot is far from being agree
able. Swiss man-servants, as I have said, are mostly
engaged by the penurious or shabby-genteel. It would
delight the soul of Thackeray if he could hear the stories
about London households which have been told me by
Swiss servants. I am in the position to corroborate the
Book of Snobs with authentic pieces justificatives, append
ing names and residences. But this, of course, is not
my object. It would be treasonable to betray confi
dences frankly and ingenuously given, in order to carry
shame and confusion hke bomb-sheUs into London draw
ing-rooms. Yet I think it may be amusing to relate one
piece of experience I find upon my note-books, for this
wiU show how very little Enghsh people understand the
sort of men they may take into their service when they
engage a cheap Swiss footman.
The man in question, whom I will call Peter, is de
scended from ancestors who have been German nobles
148

Melchior Ragetli

since the middle of the thirteenth century. Few English
people are aware that Graubiinden was an integral part
of the Empire until the fifteenth century, when it declared
its independence. Before that date it counted noble
houses of the same importance as the earlier Hapsburgs.
After that date it ranked among European States, sending
its ambassadors to France, Venice, MUan, Vienna.
FinaUy, at the end of Napoleon's career, Graubiinden
was included as a Canton in the Swiss Confederation.
Well, Peter was a member of one of the oldest equestrian
famihes of this Canton. The churches and manor-houses
of the country-side were decorated with the coat-armour
of his forefathers. They bore this shield : " Party per
fesse or and sable, a knight in fuU armour swinging a
two-handed sword across his left shoulder counter-
changed." A pedigree, perfect from 1250, showed all
the branches of the race of Wartenberg. Here and there
the parchment was illustrated with coronets ; there had
been a count of the Empire in one generation, a baron in
the next, an Austrian field-marshal with a princess for
bride in the last century. At the extreme end of the
eldest line came Peter's own name. Among his father's
papers lay a diploma of French nobihty granted by
Henri II. to " our well-beloved friend and servant,
Salomon de Wartenberg, ambassador from our aUies
the Grisons to our Court in Paris." This Salomon was
the immediate ancestor of the Wartenbergs of Luzein,
to whom Peter belonged. These archives I have ex
amined, and they are very interesting, since they show
what a fighting race the family had been between 1300
and 1800. The coronets which individual members
added to their ancient German Ritterthum had all been
gained upon the battle-field. But after the incorpora
tion of Graubiinden into the Swiss Confederation, after
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
the introduction of the Code Napoleon, with its equal
division of hereditary estates, the Luzein Wartenbergs
sank into the condition of peasants. They hved with
repubhcan simplicity, retaining indeed the traditions of
their past, and enjoying local consideration for their
birth, but seeking no means to support a rank which
is not officially recognised in Switzerland, by any acqui
sition of extraneous wealth. It was only when one of
them happened to notice the Wartenberg arms em
blazoned on the panels of a countess's carriage in Vienna
or Berlin that he remembered the nobihty of his extrac
tion. Peter, accordingly, when he wanted to learn
English, took the usual method, and got engaged as
single-handed footman in South Kensington. It is not
my intention to reveal the square or street, or the number
thereof, in which Peter found a refuge. His masters
were people of some pretension. Scotch by origin, they
had acquired in the last generation a scrap of judicial
ermine which gave them position in the upper middle-
class. Little did they imagine that, so far as blood went,
Peter, with a couple of thousand pounds in his pocket,
could have claimed precedence before them in every
Court of Europe. The CoUops were not rich. They
occupied a house too smaU for comfort, and their estab
lishment was conducted on a scale of extreme parsimony.
Accustomed as Peter was to Swiss frugahty, he opened
his eyes wide at some of the mean devices to which Lady
CoUop, widow of the judge, descended in order to save
farthings. After a dinner-party, for example, in which
there had been great show of hberahty, she would shp
down from the drawing-room and empty the heel-taps
from claret and sherry glasses into the decanters, which
she then locked up in the ceUaret. Peter was a humorous
feUow, and many whimsical tales had he to tell of the
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Melchior Ragetli

shifts to which people are put who make hundreds pass
for thousands in their income. He slept near an un-
trapped sink in a basement-room hghted from a mouldy
back-yard. Poor Peter, whose old home in sunny Luzein
had been so wholesome and so airy ! But he would come
to London and learn Enghsh. He was man enough to
know that these trifling annoyances had to be laughed
at. What really hurt him was the stony indifference of
his employers. " They never spoke a kind word to me.
Indeed, I do not think it occurred to them that I was
human." Even the solemn family prayers at which he
was bound to attend seemed a matter of parade and driU.
Having seen Mohere acted at the Comedie Francaise, he
now rocked himself to sleep among brushes, bottles, boots,
blacking, heaps of his young master's clothes, beetles,
and mephitic vapours, with a forlorn repetition of " Que
diable allait-il faire dans cette galere V Early in the
morning rose the barrister son, and rang his bell for
shaving-water. Up jumped Peter. The coals for Lady
CoUop's morning fire had next to be extracted from the
ceUar and carried to the two-pair front. Then came
interminable knives and boots to clean. Breakfast was
laid in a scramble ; prayers were got through ; and Peter
began to hand round coffee and toast. WhUe this was
going forward, several sordid skeletons used to step out
from the CoUop famUy's cupboards. It is incredible what
dehcate subjects English people wiU discuss before their
servants. The CoUops gave Peter a lesson in language
every morning on themes chosen from the most secret
and shabbiest recesses of their own hves. It would be
wrong to repeat these in detaU ; but take one insignifi
cant item for an instance. When company had been
dining with them the preceding evening, Miss CoUop used
to reckon how many glasses of champagne Captain M.
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
had consumed, and how much claret Sir Thomas N. had
wasted. Much was pardoned to the latter, for he had
rank, and was a most desirable parti. But the impe
cunious Captain, for whom one of the younger sisters had
a sneaking partiality, received no mercy at Miss Collop's
hands. The polite hes, the subterfuges, the hypocrisies,
the little plans to throw dust in the eyes of their neigh
bours, by means of which the famUy maintained its out
ward show, were openly and cynically exposed. Life in
Switzerland is so simple and so solid that Peter felt at
first bewUdered. He did not know whether to laugh or
to be angry at so much baseness in great high and mighty
London. But having more of Democritus than Hera-
clitus in his composition, he resolved to see the burlesque
side only of these things. What he learned in South
Kensington proved of service to him in after dealings
with this sort of Enghsh people. Yet it was long before he
discovered that we are not aU formed upon the CoUop type.
After this digression I will return to Melchior Ragetli,
and describe how he fared subsequently to his arrival in
London. He found himself at the end of his journey
with rather less than 500 francs in his pocket. For the
first three nights he put up at the Swiss Hotel in Old
Compton Street, which forms a general meeting-place for
his compatriots. His bedroom there cost him two
shillings a day, and food seemed terribly expensive.
Yet this first step was not a mistake ; for the habitues
of the house, who dropped in to greet their friends and
drink a glass of beer in the evening, soon made him
acquainted with all the ways of the town. At the advice
of an honest lad from his own Canton, Melchior resolved
to move into a sort of pension kept by Mr. Goodchild. It
is caUed the Christian Young Men's Association, and is
situated in Sloane Terrace. By doing so he probably
152

Melchior Ragetli

avoided many of the risks to which strangers are exposed
in London ; for Mr. Goodchild's establishment is con
ducted upon exceUent principles, and though no undue
discipline is imposed upon its inmates, they are properly
looked after. Melchior's living now cost about 18s. a
week, with something extra spent occasionally at the
Swiss Hotel. He also began to take lessons in Enghsh.
Accordingly, at the end of four months, his exchequer
sank to a low ebb. AU this while he was on the look
out for some situation, but, finding nothing to his liking,
he deferred taking a place in one of the Soho Square
restaurants which lay open to him. He thought it best,
and wisely, to wait untU affairs became desperate, rather
than to lose his chance of better and more profitable
occupation. Toward the end of July necessity drove him
to clean knives and pohsh plates in the fiery furnace of
the restaurant. Just, however, as the worst came to the
worst, Melchior's prospects brightened. I happened to
be passing through Soho Square late one afternoon upon
the eve of my departure for the country, when I saw a
face I thought I could remember staring out from behind
a dubious and dingy window. The deep-set wild eyes
reminded me of something I had seen in different cir
cumstances. Then suddenly it flashed upon me that
there was Melchior Ragetli, whom I had known two
winters in my hotel at Davos. He recognised me also,
and, leaving his work, rushed out into the square to
speak to me. Three minutes sufficed to explain his
position ; and I told him to meet me that evening at
the Athenaeum, if he could get leave from his employers.
Melchior turned up at the hour arranged. By this
time I had formed a little plan for our mutual advantage.
In Switzerland I liked the fellow's looks ; and I knew
that my old man-servant in the country would want
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
assistance. The house was going to be dismantled and
let to strangers. I intended to travel back to Davos,
and to spend the winter there. An active Graubiindener
would be of use to me ; and I felt sure that I could make
three or four months in my family of great service to
him. I asked him, therefore, whether he could leave his
situation on the spot. If so, I was prepared to engage
him as under-man-servant, and to put him in the way
of learning English weU. Of course he jumped at my
proposal. How he got loose from the restaurant I never
inquired. But, next evening, we were estabhshed to
gether in my old home.
i* I always liked the looks of Melchior, and now I grew
to hke him personaUy, and heard many of the facts I
have related in this simple history. I gave him lessons
in English — he told me lately that I had given him forty,
but I cannot remember the precise number. I only wish
for his sake that the lessons had been more frequent ; he
then would have been able to write a better letter than
this, which I present as a specimen of his orthography : —
' My Worth Mr. S  , — firsly I muss beg your pardon,
because I have not written to you befor and let you now
that I was not going to South of France. I heret bad news
from there, and Mr. M  kam tweis asking me to kome
bak to my old place. And so I though it would be better
for me to be nere home. I am very well this yaehr, and I
hope Mr. S  and theaer Familie is also weU, I alwais ex-
pectet you some time in X. I am hape to teU you that my boy
is going on weU ; he already begins to eet with us at Table.
I now not any other news, witsch would interess you.
I remen with many Salitations and the best wisches for
Christmas and new Jear your traute servant, Melchior.
Goldenen Adler. X. the 23 of xii. 86.
154

Melchior Ragetli

It wiU be seen that the English, barring orthography,
is good enough : and I must add that, in the three months
he passed with me in England, I was greatly struck with
the man's capacity for picking up our language. He got
it oraUy weU and with a good accent. Much was left to
be desired in writing, though he worked diligently at this
branch in the time aUotted him.
WhUe Melchior was in my service I used more and
more to wonder why he had chosen this profession of a
porter. As an animal, as a man too, he seemed to me
above it. There was something in him made to handle
firearms rather than blacking-brushes, a nature more
adapted to the field and forest than to the servants' haU.
As my friend Peter said at Lady CoUop's : " Que diable
aUait-U faire dans cette galere ?" even so I often asked
myself why Melchior had thrust himself into this hole
of industry. The answer to these questionings is very
simple. He wanted to make money, and had the most
resolute intention, after making it, to settle down at
home and hve the pleasant hfe of his forefathers in the
mountains. In olden days he would have fought on any
or every battle-field of Europe to get cash. But European
history has turned over a new leaf. " Tempora mutantur
et nos mutamur in iUis," and the Swiss make more by
Fremdenindustrie than they could do by foreign military
service in this age.
When he left England with me in the November of
1881, he was twenty-one years of age, and had spent five
years in acquiring experience, French and English. He
is now married, as the letter I have quoted from him in
dicates ; and is on the way to become a substantial man
in Emsenau. What happened in the interval between
1881 and 1887 remains to be described. From this part
of my narrative it wiU appear how porters make their
155

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
fortune after they have succeeded in gaining the necessary
equipment. The most interesting period of Melchior's Wanderjahren
was now closed ; but he had by no means come to the
end of his wanderings. Five years had stUl to elapse
before he settled down into anything like a continuous
course of life ; and this he only did at last because he
had accumulated sufficient money, and had taken to
himself a wife. He worked for the first year at a raUway
hotel in St. GaUen, which was frequented by commercial
traveUers. Here he discharged the whole of a head-
porter's functions, engaging and paying an under-strapper,
whose duty it was to carry out his orders.
I must inform my readers that a porter in Swiss hotels
gets no wages. He has food and lodging provided by the
estabhshment. But he is entirely dependent for his
profits upon the tips he receives from visitors to the
house, and upon the commissions he is able to exact.
To this point I shaU afterwards return. It is enough
now to lay down the general principle, that head-porters
receive no salary from the hotel. Indeed, they often pay
rent for the occupation of their posts. There are some
houses in large towns for the porter's place in which as
much as £30 is yearly handed over. If the head-porter
engages helps at his own risk, he wUl have to pay these
at the rate of 25 to 30 francs a month. They live free
of cost, and he is entitled to receive their gratuities. In
first-class establishments, however, the system is different.
All degrees of porters, the concierge, the omnibus-porter,
and the boots, are in immediate relation to the manage
ment, upon special terms of agreement. The upper-
servant is responsible for supplying brushes and blacking,
the cost of which may amount to some 10 francs a week
in a large house. The detaUs of these arrangements vary
156

Melchior Ragetli

so much with circumstances that it is impossible to present
a fuU view of the matter here. This much may, never
theless, be taken for certain : porters exist mainly upon
the generosity of the travelling pubhc, and have to meet
considerable expenses before they can clear a net profit.
English people in general do not, I think, comprehend
this system, and are not aware that the porter, upon
whose efficiency their comfort largely depends, ought to
be liberally rewarded by them.
It follows as a natural consequence from what I have
just said that the more showy situations are not always
the most remunerative. During one year, in a compara
tively bad hotel at St. GaUen, Melchior cleared about
£80. The next year, which he divided between an
English pension at Davos and a little inn at Thusis,
brought him considerably less. Boarding-houses, where
famihes reside for periods of several months, are not
profitable ; commercial inns, where there is a perpetual
coming and going of guests, pay most. But the pace
at which Melchior had to work in St. GaUen was more
than he could stand. If he secured four hours of sleep
he thought himself fortunate. Up late to receive arrivals
by the last trains, up early to despatch outgoers upon
their journey by the first trains, occupied throughout
the day with the luggage of tourists and the parapher
nalia of commercial traveUers, responsible besides for aU
kinds of odd jobs about the town, he lived in one con
tinual whirl of petty but exacting duties. It was not
wonderful that he should seek a respite at the end of
these twelve months.
This explains why, in the autumn of 1882, Melchior
wrote to inform me that he meant to accept a situation
in the South of France. His brother, Balthazar, was
concierge in a good hotel at Mentone, and had the refusal
157

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
of an omnibus porter's place open. The journey cost
100 francs, for Melchior traveUed with companions, and
they lived joyously upon the road. The back journey
was not less expensive, so I think that he had not very
much to show of clear gain by the move. His health,
however, profited, and he greatly appreciated the delights
of a southern winter on the Mediterranean. Next
summer he provided himself with a similar place at
Vevey, where he had to work harder, but put more
money in his pocket.
The Wanderlust, or thirst to see the world, is, as I
have stated, a strong motive passion in men who take
to the porter's trade. It does not wear off rapidly ; and
the conditions of their daUy life are so unrestful, so ex
acerbating, that they always fancy they wUl be happier
in some new situation. This causes a great waste of
money, but if they have good stuff in them, as Melchior
had, it adds enormously to their eventual efficiency.
Other motives contribute to their frequent change of
scene. Living away from home and its restraining in
fluences, they form connections which after a whUe they
are desirous of shaking off. Great hotels, however well
managed, offer innumerable temptations to young men.
These are places where people of both sexes meet upon
a common ground of hberty. That awful power, the
viUage censorship, more formidable even than Mrs.
Grundy, is absent in Nice, or Cannes, or Zurich. It
wUl easily be understood that much may happen which
a man, at the end of his temporary engagement, is only
too glad to forget. Here, too, the comparison I instituted
between porters and saUors holds good.
Yet I have noticed that these wandering spirits, after
some time spent in oscillation, usuaUy settle down to a
fixed routine. What they hke best is to secure two com-
158

Melchior Ragetli

fortable situations, one on the Riviera for the winter,
the other in some tourists' place in Switzerland for the
summer. It is true that a part of their earnings goes
in traveUing expenses. But they have spring and autumn
holidays in their own vUlage. And the net results of their
twelve months' work will amount to over £100. A three
months' season in a good hotel in the Upper Engadine
brings in 2,000 francs, or £80, which is as much as the
pastor of a Graubiinden vUlage gets in a whole year.
About as much may be expected from a winter in Cannes.
I have heard of exceptionally advantageous situations
where as much as £150 can be laid by. Deduct current
outgoings, and the income of £100 is clear. Indeed, I
believe that I am considerably understating the average
of profits in first-class places. Other men solve the pro
blem of how to secure permanence and fixity of profit by
taking an appointment in an hotel which works aU the
year round. This must of necessity be one which depends
more on commerce than on tourists for its support. The
labour is monotonous and exacting, but the conditions
are weU understood. Nothing is lost on journeys. I am
personally of opinion that a man gains most in the long
run who sticks to a post of this description. If he has
married, the advantages are incontestable. He estab
lishes his home in the neighbourhood of his place of busi
ness. His life then falls into the rhythm of an ordinary
citizen's existence. This, I may add, is how Melchior
eventually settled down — not, indeed, without grumblings
and repinings, for he long continued to feel the Wander
lust, but compelled thereto by the exigencies of a young
wife and a little boy to be provided for. The highest
prizes of this sort in the profession are concierge
situations in hotels hke the " Bauer in der Stadt " at
Zurich, or the " Bernerhof " at Berne. I am informed
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
that these are worth a steady £150 up to £200 a
year. Before passing to consider how head-porters make
their income, I ought to add some detaUs concerning
the relation of a Swiss workman to his famUy. Since
the apphcation of the Code Napoleon to Switzerland,
famUies may be regarded roughly as joint-stock co-
panies, managed by the parents for the common benefit.
It is known that when both parents die, the estate will
be divided into equal portions among the chUdren, boys
and girls sharing ahke. AU money, therefore, which is
drawn from the estate by sons or daughters for extra
ordinary purposes is debited against them. If a boy, for
instance, elects to be a doctor, he anticipates his share
in the eventual division. On the other hand, labour ex
pended by them to the profit of the estate is reckoned
to their credit. If a boy stays at home and works hke
a farm-servant, he acquires a future claim in proportion
to his service rendered. It is for the interest of each
member to pay off debts upon the property or to increase
its value. Consequently, when a son goes out into the
world, after his education has been completed, it is ex
pected of him to remit a portion of his earnings to the
famUy fund. This stands in heu of work he might have
done at home, and also as a recognition of his early
rearing. The precise amount to be thus contributed by
individuals is determined by feeling and instinct more
than by any fixed rule. The system cannot have the
exactitude of a mercantUe concern ; yet it approximates
to that standard. The result is that both sons and
daughters in a Swiss famUy feel it their duty either to
discharge personal functions in the home or else to
send a part of their gains yearly back to the common
stock. 160

Melchior Ragetli

Such being the case, it wiU be clear that considerable
deductions have to be made from the earnings of a
porter before he acquires anything substantial for him
self. Not unfrequently he gives the father or the mother
aU that he has made for several years. If he has received
advances from the famUy estate he applies his savings
to the repayment of this loan. But the time comes when
he thinks himself justified in founding a private estate.
Then he opens an account at the bank ; and from that
moment forward his expenditure is more economical, his
profits sensibly increase. So important is the principle
laid down by Aristotle that social institutions depend
upon to 'lSiov Kai dyairr/Tov — the things men own and love
as their particular possessions.
The relations in which Swiss people stand to their
Gemeinde and to their famUy, on both of which I have
now touched, determine their conduct in a very remark
able degree. Whithersoever they go in the world, what
ever occupation they engage in, they never lose that tie
of interest, as well as of sympathy, which binds them to
their birthplace. It is there, if the worst comes to the
worst, that they have rights of maintenance. It is there
that, when the old folk die, they can reckon on some
scrap or shred of the fields beloved in boyhood. Con
sequently, they only emigrate for a season, with the object
of amassing capital. Consequently, after running adven
tures in aU parts of Europe, they most frequently marry
a woman of their own village. The Swiss rarely become
colonists in our Anglo-Saxon sense of the word. They
rarely build up large fortunes in foreign countries. What
they want to do is to make money, and to come back
better off than their neighbours who stayed at home.
They are modest in their desires, for a very moderate
amount of wealth places them in a superior position
161 L

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
among their kindred. Such being their scheme of con
duct, they naturaUy prefer to take a home-bred girl to
wife. She wiU appreciate the goods of fortune they have
won ; she wUl not be above the services demanded from
a housekeeper. She wiU inherit something to be added
to her husband's property. With more of ease and com
fort than they enjoyed in boyhood, they look forward
to renewing the old round of homely joys and duties.
This abnegation of vulgar ambitions, this piety for the
past, this contentment with the solid goods of life, chal
lenge our respect. The social institutions of the com
mune and the family, as they are framed in Switzerland,
contribute largely to the state of things I have described.
We must also make aUowance for the sense of personal
dignity, inahenable from a Swiss burgher, who in his own
place has no superior, and who is eligible to the highest
political offices of his national Government. But I am
fain to imagine that, over and above all these considera
tions, the romance of the Swiss mountains has some
thing to do in creating this attachment of their people
to its soU.
I have already observed that Swiss porters gain their
living exclusively by gratuities and commissions. It is
only simple and untraveUed folk who imagine, when they
see " service " entered as an item in their hotel biU, that
their obhgations toward the servants are discharged.
What the item for " service " reaUy means is idemnifica-
tion to the landlord for his kitchen establishment, for the
numerous employes who do not meet the tourist's eye.
MeanwhUe, the porter's claims to special remuneration
are generaUy noted in a memorandum on the biU.
There is much to be said on both sides regarding the
question of tipping servants in hotels. For my own part,
I hke to tip the people with whom I am brought into
162

Melchior Ragetli

personal contact. While it pleases me to feel that the
item of " service " at so much a head exonerates me of
any duty towards cooks, scullions, ostlers, cleaners-up,
and hangers-on, I am not above appreciating the kind
of attention which a generous gratuity secures. More
over, I know enough of the Swiss working-classes to be
sure that they prefer earning their money in this way.
An equal amount paid quarterly has not the same attrac
tions for their frugal minds. The present mixed system,
commonly in vogue, meets, therefore, with my approba
tion. I know what can be urged agamst it. I know
that shy or indolent traveUers do not like the trouble of
remembering and remunerating their personal attendants.
On this point I reply that they lose a great deal of such
interest as direct dealings with inferiors supply in life.
I know that people who cannot afford to tip liberally are
supposed to find themselves at a disadvantage. But this
I positively declare to be not the case. They are faith
fully served ; for aU the servants in a Swiss hotel regard
themselves as responsible for duties discharged, not to
the visitors, but to the master of the house. Moreover,
the poorer kind of traveUers would find themselves very
heavily taxed for " service," if the system in use at
Lucerne, of making one large charge for " service " upon
the biU and prohibiting gratuities, were universaUy
adopted. I know, lastly, that tips are supposed to
demoralize their recipients. I do not accept this view,
though I admit that in Switzerland, as elsewhere, generous
givers are better liked and more warmly remembered
than the parsimonious. Tipping is so rooted in human
nature that the strictest regulations wUl not eradicate it.
We have only to remember what happens on Enghsh
raUway platforms, face to face with pompous prohibitory
placards. Surely, then, it is better for hotel servants to
163 l 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
expect lawful gratuities than to receive them on the sly,
with a bad conscience. FinaUy, I will observe, as a fact
of my experience, that I would far rather sacrifice a
couple of expensive items on a foreign tour, a petit diner
soigne in the Palais Royal, or a box at the Scala on a gala
night in Milan, or even the sight of some picture like
Giorgione's at Castelfranco, than not have cash enough
to spare for the men and women who have served me.
The question of commissions offers considerations of
more difficulty. It must be remembered that in Switzer
land they talk openly of Fremdenindustrie. This industry,
which we may call V exploitation des etrangers, imphes the
distribution of foreign capital over a numerous and varied
class of individuals engaged in it. The chief middle-man,
who gets his hving out of traveUers, is the innkeeper.
He takes the largest share of profits, for he has embarked
upon the largest venture, and has organized the machinery
by which subordinates obtain their share of gain. Drivers,
guides, and shopkeepers come next in the scale ; and
these people are greatly dependent upon porters for re
commendation to travelling famihes. It foUows that a
smaU percentage upon the value of articles supphed to
tourists is universally conceded to the porter. If he does
not duly receive it, he may boycott the offending trades
man, and transfer his patronage to a rival. With drivers
the commission system is conducted on a large scale.
The very considerable profits which can be made by a
head-porter at some of the most fashionable mountain-
places in a single season, are derived to a large extent
from percentages on carriages supplied to tourists. Sup
pose, for example, that a family wants to take a driving
tour which wiU cost them by the tariff 500 francs. The
porter puts this opportunity up to auction among those
coachmen whom he knows to have good carriages and
164

Melchior Ragetli

trustworthy horses. There are always more vetturini in
search of jobs than the demand requires. The lowest
bidder among these gets the famUy, and pays the differ
ence between his offer and the tariff price to the porter.
Then the coachman is introduced, as recommended by
the hotel. If the family express their intention of not
going at the tariff rate, then the auction takes place on
a somewhat reduced scale aU round. A " return-carriage"
is vamped up ; Paterfamihas thinks himself clever ; Jehu
and porter divide somewhat inferior booty. Drivers who
contrive to bargain with tourists without the interven
tion of the porter, run some risk of being written down
upon that functionary's black book. This is by no means
such a mere trifle as it may appear. Porters constitute
a guild which is distributed all over Europe ; and they
have their own ways of communicating information to
their coUeagues and successors. I happened once to be
traveUing in Italy with a courier who had been a porter
in his youth. I noticed an odd mark on one of our port
manteaus, and called his attention to it. He cried out,
" The stupid fellow !" but, being in a confidential mood,
he afterwards explained that the mark meant I was a
hberal and easy-going traveller ; only it ought not to
have been chalked up so obviously. Afterwards he showed
me other signs, of quite a different significance, which I
should have been sorry to have carried round upon my
baggage. This incident made me understand that it
would not be good for tradespeople or drivers to get into
the bad graces of an influential porter.
I confess that I dislike the commission system, and
think that it must have a deteriorating effect upon the
characters of those who gain by it. Yet at bottom it
contains nothing worse than the principle upon which all
middle-trade depends. Somebody is wanted to bring
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
the producer and the consumer into rapport, and to settle
the current price of commodities. It would, indeed, be
well for both producer and consumer if this intermediary,
with his large profits, could be eliminated. In many
branches of industry there is good hope that he will
speedily disappear. But hotels, with their complex
machinery, must long subsist as legitimate and necessary
middle-trade concerns. We cannot do without them in
the hurry of travel. Tourists are glad to pay mine host
6 francs for a good bottle of wine which the producer
could have given them for 4 francs, because they cannot
get at the producer on a journey and he cannot get at
them. By parity of reasoning, we pay the tariff price
of 100 francs for a carriage, 10 francs of which wUl go
into the pockets of the porter who guaranteed its service-
ableness. If we had bargained with some coachman on
the open street, and he had taken us for 90 francs, he
would have been no better off, and we should not have
had the security of a good establishment's recommenda
tion. Tourists who dislike the commission system can
always post at a somewhat higher cost than the tariff
for private carriages. And I, for one, have not unfre
quently had no reason to complain of men whom I
engaged without introduction simply because I hked
their looks.
If any one reads through this study of the " Life of a
Swiss Porter," he may justly accuse me of chronicling
small beer. I wUl not, however, plead guUty to the
charge of having metaphorically suckled fools. A man
like Melchior Ragetli, in whom I have tried to depict
the average servant of his class, is neither a fool nor a
knave, but a human being who deserves respect. It was
my object to show what amount of enterprise and what
versatUity the first steps in his profession called into
166

Melchior Ragetli
play ; afterwards to deal frankly with the less attractive
side of his money-making career. He is the same sort
of man as those ancestors of his who fought at Marignano
and governed the Valtellina. They returned to Switzer
land with the plunder of Lombardy, and built the old
houses which we see. Those old houses bear pious in
scriptions on their fronts ; and the war-beaten soldiers
who aged beneath their roofs were honest un-Itahanated
citizens. So it is with the porters of the present epoch.
By careful toil and the conscientious discharge of respon
sible duties, they acquire their right to carve a large shoe
out of the Fremdenindustrie. Then they retire to Em
senau, buUd or improve their homestead, hew their forest
and manure their fields, rear children, and hve as though
a foreigner in Switzerland was never dreamed of.
J. A. S.

167

SWISS ATHLETIC SPORTS

The Federal Athletic sports of Switzerland, which are
celebrated trienniaUy, under the name of Tumfest, or
Fete de Gymnastique, or Festa Ginnastica (for this Re
public always has to use three languages), may be caUed
the Olympic Games of the Helvetian Fatherland. Great
towns compete for the expensive honour of holding them
in turns, regarding this in the hght of what the Greeks
would have termed a Leitourgia. In July, 1891, it fell
to the lot of Geneva to perform the patriotic duty. No
city of the Confederation can vie with Geneva in local
and material advantages, whereby a spectacle of national
importance may be presented on an adequate scale.
Fagged out by writing six successive chapters of a Life
of Michelangelo, I resolved to take the opportunity of
brain-rest offered by this festival. So I joined a group
of five contending athletes from the Gymnastic Club which
I have helped to found and house at Davos. In the
company of these good feUows, who never even heard
the name of Michelangelo, I knew that I should pass
six days without the tyrannous preoccupation of my
subject. The journey from Davos to Geneva carries one right
across Switzerland, from the extreme frontier of Tyrol
168

Swiss Athletic Sports
to the verge of French territory. It can only be done
with great difficulty in one day. We broke it into two
days, sleeping the first night at Baden.
Early next morning our little band joined a special
train for gymnasts, composed entirely of third-class car
riages, and freighted with about six hundred men. We
found ourselves in the midst of a club from Basel, who
had on board three drums, upon which they drummed the
whole day through, one feUow taking up the sticks
when his neighbour put them down. What with this
drumming, and the singing of patriotic songs ("0, mein
Heimathland ; 0, mein Vaterland," etc.), and occasional
interludes of baUy-ragging, the journey proved hvely
enough. I could not, however, in spite of the noise,
refrain from admiring the conduct of these hundreds of
young men out for a hohday, without guide or governor
to curb their spirits, yet aU behaving well. No unseemly
action did I notice, and no word was heard which might
have brought a blush to a boy's cheek. Then they were
so comradely, so brotherly, so ready to make friends ;
albeit some spoke French and others German, and both
found it difficult to fraternize, except by the exchange
of tobacco, wine, and so forth. The Swiss people are,
in a true sense of the term, a law to themselves. This
their centuries of freedom, equal pohtical rights, and
gradually enlarged democracy have wrought, establishing
a hberty which is not hcense, and fostering republican
tendencies which remain conservative. Much, too, may
be ascribed to that mild form of compulsory service in
the army, which stamps habits of discipline upon the
youth without destroying domestic or industrial virtues.
Among a mass of Swiss gymnasts you cannot say what
social elements compose each club. The nation is so
radically democratic that the same section may contain
169

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
sons of bankers and landowners of ancient blood, mixing
on an equal footing with clerks and artisans. Such a
club would belong to one of the great towns. At festivals
they compete with other clubs composed of peasants and
Alpine herdsmen, or with lads from the Cantonal schools,
or undergraduates at the universities studying to be
doctors, clergymen, professors, lawyers. When they
come together it is only strength, courage, dexterity,
personal beauty, pleasant manners, or some other quahty
peculiar to the individual, which gives superiority to one
man over the other. Even the undistinguished and the
stupid are kindly accepted by their brotherhood. Of
wealth, birth, position in the world, there is no question.
What brings them together as athletes is love of sport,
just as what brings them together in the barrack is duty
to the country.
There were gymnasts of all sorts, sizes, and ages in our
special train, from Verlaine's Pierrot —
" Corps fluet et non pas maigre,
Voix de fille et non pas aigre — "
up to bruisers like MUo of Croton, brawny, thick-set men,
of bone and muscle, able to feU oxen with a fist-blow on
the forehead. Most people think the Swiss an ugly, ill-
developed race. They have not traveUed with 600 of
these men on a summer day, as lightly, tightly clad as
decency and comfort allow. It is true that one rarely
sees a perfectly handsome face, and that the Swiss com
plexion is apt to be muddy. But the men are never
deficient in character ; and when denuded of the Ul-made
clothes they usuaUy wear, they offer singular varieties
of strength, agility, and grace. The nation is so mixed
of Celtic, Teutonic, and Latin elements — Helvetian, Bur-
gundian, Alemannic, Itahan, Rhaetian — and these ele-
170

Swiss Athletic Sports
ments have been so little fused and worn down by inter
marriage, owing to the maintenance of the Canton and
the Commune, that when some thousands congregate on
these occasions, strongly contrasted types of physique
are presented upon every hand. The artist's glance may
range from the wiUowy, white-skinned, grey-eyed dweUers
on the Bodensee to the wiry, swarthy herdsmen of Ticino ;
from the taU gaunt peasant of the Vorder Rheinthal to
the hthe and mobfle Vaudois ; from the buUs of Uri and
the bears of Berne to the roe of Jura and the steinbock
of the Upper Engadine. Of course, a train fuU of gym
nasts, picked young men from aU the Cantons, highly
developed by athletics and airily attired in the costume
suited to their sports, offered particularly favourable
opportunities for this study of types.
It was a placid day of July sunhght between nights of
storm. Our train, with its freight of drumming, singing,
sportive comrades, swept through that luminous, sweet
landscape of lower Switzerland, aU deep in hay, and ready
for the harvest. When we passed mowers on the meadows
they stood, presented scythes, and waved their hats in
the air. On we swept, by gliding Limmat and stormy
Aar, past Olten with its furnaces, romantic Aarburg,
Burgdorf hke an Albert Diirer etching on its wooded hiU.
The sUver vision of the Jungfrau soared from fleecy clouds
into pale hght above the town of Berne. Then Fribourg,
with her bridges and brown Gothic towers. Onward,
through lawns and homesteads deep-embowered in groves
of pine and beech. At Palezieux the descent becomes
rapid ; and soon we ghded into that azure of the Leman
Lake, which Byron caUed " beautiful as a dream." A
symphony of blues : the amethystine hiUs, the fiery
sapphire of the upper sky, the clear, pure breadth of
sleeping water. At Nyon aU Mont Blanc hove into
171

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
sight, deploying pinnacle and snow-field in a mighty
pyramid. The gymnasts gathered to the windows, clung
upon the steps outside, saluting the monarch of moun
tains with three volleyed cheers, that roUed above the
drums along the ringing rails. It was a triumphal pro
gress through scenes " which neither man nor boy, nor
aU that is at enmity with joy," could spoil. Indeed, our
boys and men were made to spoil nothing that is beautiful
in Nature. They added to those spreading landscape
lines, to that aerial colouration, the subtler, keener accents
of man's hving form divine.

II
At last we reached Geneva. The young men marched
off to the barracks provided for them by the town, whUe
I retired to my inn-room overlooking the swift outflowing
of the Rhone. We were not separated for long, how
ever. I came as a member of a Swiss gymnastic club,
and enjoyed the privfleges appertaining to that quahty.
That is to say, I was free to go whither I liked upon the
exercising grounds, to mingle with the athletes at their
sports, to sit in the circles formed by men around the
wrestling spaces, and to eat and drink at their tables.
Every club had its own ribband, metal clasp, and other
distinguishing points of costume. Wearing these, one
ceased to be an individual from the common herd ; and
there were men with greyer heads than mine who ap
peared upon the field in a like capacity. The clubs carry
banners also, which are set up above the common boards
in the dining-hall ; and round their flag the members
gather, as a rallying-point in the enormous crowd. Four
thousand active gymnasts are said to have been present
172

MONSTEIN.

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Swiss Athletic Sports
at Geneva. To these must be added their friends, and
the public of spectators.
We arrived in good time for the procession which
opened the Festival. It was a fine sight to see those
thousands, marching under their banners, with their
different costumes and colours. Bands of music broke
their ranks at intervals, and golden sunhght poured upon
the scene, as the men debouched upon the Place du
Rhone and crossed the Pont des Bergues. Beyond their
ranks that great new fountain sprang from the jetty
200 feet into the air, and fell back to the lake in foamy
fleeces of rainbow-coloured spray. Beside the numerous
Swiss clubs there came two sections of Italians from Milan,
several from France, and one from Germany. A few
Englishmen also put in their appearance.
The cortege returned by the Rue de la Corraterie to
the Place Neuve, where all the athletes, clustering round
the bronze equestrian statue of General Dufour, intoned
the Swiss National Hymn. By this time the sun was
sinking, and a rosy light began to flush the broken pre
cipices of the Saleve ridge. I stroUed into the precincts
aUotted to the sports. The whole of that level piece of
ground, which is known as La Plaine, had been divided
into three unequal parts. The first, which formed a kind
of vestibule, presented the aspect of a village fair. It
was covered with booths, panoramas, acrobats, fat ladies,
monsters, dwarfs, shooting galleries, shops, etc. On the
outskirts a score of merry-go-rounds, with ships, swans,
horses, and careering cars, whirled in sickening gyrations
to the clangour of their Barbary organs, whUe a perUous
switchback railway ran along a line of boundary trees.
The second, and by far the largest, portion was railed
off for the exercises of the next two days. I do not know
how many acres the space covered ; but it would have
173

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
sufficed an English University, with all the coUeges, for
cricket-ground and footbaU-ground combined. Beyond
that came the third part, upon which a vast wooden
buUding had been erected, largely opened at both ends,
high in the rafters, easUy accommodating some five
thousand persons at the tables set for food. One side
was occupied by a raised stage, the other by a music-
gaUery, and the whole shone brUhantly Uluminated with
electric hght. In these precincts, then, our days were
spent, from dawn till dewy eve. The scene at nightfall
in the Festival Hall was exceedingly animated : 4,000
men at supper, with a military band playing ; the " Mar-
seUlaise," the " National Anthem," and other weU-known
songs, chanted by all those robust voices ; the clinking
of hundreds of glasses, the rolling cheers, the keen bluish
light faUing upon eager faces and broad shoulders and
arms naked to the elbows. At each end of the shed
appeared a superb back-scene, painted by no hand of
man. Southward rose the Saleve, with a bouquet of
solemn trees and a church spire, bathed in moonlight ;
northward stretched a distant reach of Jura and a faintly-
coloured after-sunset sky. Viewed through the steady
glare of the electric light these large, simple compositions
wore exactly the aspect and the colour-quahty of scenes
in an opera, proving how true to Nature, under certain
conditions, the art of the stage-painter can be.

Ill
I do not propose to attempt a detailed account of the
athletic sports. They include, of course, those general
exercises in which every gymnast is bound to qualify,
and for special exceUence in which prizes may be won
174

Swiss Athletic Sports
by the competing sections. After these the gymnastics
divide themselves in Switzerland into two distinct
branches. The one, called " National," embraces stone-
lifting and stone-putting, wrestling of two kinds, and
leaping. The other, caUed " Artistic," has principally
to do with the parallel bars, the trapeze, and the sus
pended rings. Specialities, like running, boxing, fencing,
swimming, etc., are provided for ; individuals present
feats of strength or agility, studied apart from the cus
tomary course ; whole sections exhibit elaborate dances,
exercises with clubs or iron bars or balls, pyramids
bringing masses of men into strangest combinations.
Most of these latter shows, being eminently scenic, were
given after supper while the band was playing. Under
the electric light the effect was something superb, and
the vociferous applause ehcited seemed weU deserved.
It will be readily conceived, with so many men in com
petition, and such a variety of sports, that a little army
of umpires were required and kept in almost continual
activity. For my own part I took the greatest interest in the
wrestling. In Switzerland wrestling is of two kinds.
The one which is called " Ringen " does not differ in
any essential respect from that practised by us Enghsh.
The point about the other is that the combatants wear
loosely-fitting drawers of canvas over their ordinary
breeches, with a powerful clasped leather belt. Grip is
got by each man grasping the girdle behind his antago
nist's back with the left hand, while the other takes firm
hold of the loose end of the canvas drawers above the
left knee. This is called " Schwingen," because it often
happens, with the grip described, that one of the wrestlers
lifts the other in the air and whirls him round. In the
course of the struggle the grip changes, and every con-
175

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
ceivable form of clasp or grasp may be observed. When
two vigorous feUows of equal buUd and strength are
paired, say a couple of herdsmen from the Bernese
Emmen-Thal or rustic AppenzeU, wresthng of both sorts
is extremely exciting and not without an element of
danger. It is in some respects even more interesting
when a young giant, without much practice in the sport,
happens to be mated with a dexterous opponent — brute
force and weight matched against nimbleness and science.
Victory not unfrequently crowns him who looked but
mean and contemptible beside the heroic form of his
rival. Though very rough handling has to be expected
in the wresthng-ring, nothing hke bad blood or resent
ment ever came beneath my notice. The victor and van
quished shake hands and drink a cup of wine together ;
and after a desperate encounter, in which blood has been
drawn and each hes panting on the ground for minutes,
you will see the two men rise together, link arms round
waists, and walk across the field to take their rest. I
asked a friend of mine — a staghke youth from Grau
biinden, taU and sinewy, like young AchUles on a fresco
at Pompeii — how aU the gymnasts in this country came
to be so brotherly. " Oh," he replied, " that is because
we come into physical contact with one another. You
only learn to love men whose bodies you have touched
and handled." True as I beheve this remark to be, and
wide-reaching in its possibilities of application, I some
how did not expect it from the lips of an Alpine peasant.
As this young fellow is a good specimen of the Swiss
gymnast, I wiU try to describe him. Twenty-one years
of age, he stands six feet two in his stockings. He has
the legs of the Apoxyomenos, the breast and arms of an
Apollo. Poised above his strong fuU throat and broad
square shoulders rises a head which might be carved
176

Swiss Athletic Sports
upon a gem or stamped upon a medal. It is a head of
noticeable beauty ; smaU in proportion to the stature of
the man, crisped over with dark massive curls, the features
finely cut in profile down from a low white forehead to the
firm round chin and full curved lips. It would be a head
for a sculptor, were it not that it owes much of its grace
to an ever-laughing light of gladness in the black eyes,
a smile in the friendly mouth, and a warmth of colour
which only Giorgione could do justice to. His clothing
was a pair of tight-fitting flannel drawers, black wooUen
stockings clasping the calves, a thin jersey leaving the
arms bare, and a girdle of broad red silk wound firmly
about the loins. Thus clad, the young AchiUes moved
unconscious of his charm across the stage, against the
screen of distant trees, under the flooding sunhght ;
detaching his triumphant manhood from the atmosphere
and breadth and verdure of the plain, which seemed to
faU into their proper place as framework for the noble
form and godlike presence of the youth.

IV
Saturated with Michelangelo, I roamed these fields in
search of his characteristic type. I wished to detect in
some forms there — not David ; that was sufficiently
rendered for me by the young AchiUes — but those Genii
of the Sistine and that bound Captive of the Louvre :
the pecuhar shape of male, in short, which stands for seal
and signature of Buonarroti's sense of beauty, and yields
the keynote of his temperament. This type I did not dis
cover in the brawny Bernese wrestlers, with their gently-
sloping shoulders and bossy muscles on the thorax, fore
and aft. I did not find it in iron-thewed, uncouth
177 m

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
herdsmen from Glarus and Uri ; nor in supple Italians,
where hip and thigh outbalanced the masses of the torso ;
nor yet again in those dying-gladiator kind of men, who
come from Thurgau, flexible and dreamy, like captives
on the Arch of Constantine. Everywhere I sought ; and
in the search I became aware how singular and beautiful
the type must be. At last I ran it down in one young
feUow from the Jura. There was the small head, rising
from a thick and sinewy neck, extending into ample
shoulders ; the lines of the body giving wide girth for
chest and flexible back, descending to narrow flanks,
extending into length of thigh-bone, and contracting to
fine articulations in the knees and ankles. Large hands
and powerful feet for the extremities. Here, then, I
caught my master's scheme of the male form, the note
preferred by him from aU the symphony of living human
beings. Then I compared nature with the uses to which
my master's art turned what nature gave him, for the
production of vast decorative architectural effects : Titanic
forms, suspended for ever as symbols of human energy
and loveliness upon aerial ceilings or in works of sculp
tured marble. The young man from the Jura seemed
more simply beautiful ; and I thought how Raphael
would have seized the vigorous grace of him, just as he
lounged there. At the same time the conviction pressed
upon my brain that, so seized, so taken au vif, this model
might have passed almost unnoticed in the crowd of
Saints and Popes, Sibyls and Prophets. It was neces
sary to accentuate the broader aspects of the type.
This Michelangelo did by adding weight to the shoulders
and the thorax, increasing the volume of the arms and
thighs, exaggerating the leg in its proportion to the torso,
while keeping the relations of head, throat, hands, and
feet. The beauty of life, ahve there in a man, was felt
178

Swiss Athletic Sports
by him acutely. But when it came to decorative work,
he enforced the rhythm of that beauty, and maintaining
relative form- values, converted them to monumental
and abiding visions of the truth he had perceived.
Thus comparing the living men before me with Michel
angelo's superhuman race of Titans, I began to learn
much which has an important bearing on his preference
for complicated attitudes. It is not probable that he
would have derived instruction from the Turnfest at
Geneva. He knew everything which nature has to teach
and science to discover in the region of design. But his
disciple learned, by watching aU those models in vehement
action or in indolent repose (especiaUy the straining
wrestlers and the ring of recumbent athletes round them),
how truly the boldest violences of Michelangelo are justi
fied as possibilities of transitional or momentary pose.
Whether we ought to regard them as justified, when trans
lated into the stationary fact of marble, is another matter.
Nevertheless I am certain there is not one of his most
questionable postures that could not have been verified
upon the wrestling-ground. For arriving at this critical
conclusion it was an immense advantage to have so many
hundreds of unconscious models always posing together
in groups, and without premeditation. From the habit
I acquired of fixing on my mental retina some movement
which illustrated a corresponding problem of the master's
design, I became sure that he possessed an eye as rapid
and a memory as retentive as the lens and film of a
detective camera for arresting and recording transitory
phases of corporeal action. It might be argued that he
worked out these strained attitudes schematicaUy, from
his knowledge of bony and muscular structure in the
human frame. But, even if he did so, it is certain that
in many most difficult cases he could only have verified
179 m 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
the product of his science by referring to the model in a
posture lasting but a fraction of a second.
The crowning event of the Festival, for an aesthetical
spectator, was when the thousands of the gymnasts stood
drawn up in ranks and sections to perform their general
exercises. These consist of various movements, bring
ing each limb by turns into activity, and displaying the
whole muscular resources of the body. The wide field
was covered with men, every one of whom moved in
concert with the mighty mass, rhythmicaUy, to the sound
of music. The show lasted for half an hour, and finer
driU was never seen. It had not the overwhelming effect
produced by the marching past of an army, or the wheeling
of columns and forming of squares on a review day.
But for plastic beauty, for variety of posture, for melodic
cadence in the lithely swaying figures, it surpassed any
thing which I have known. A German, who had come
from Munich for the Festival, happened to stand beside
me on the platform, whence we surveyed the spectacle.
He burst into tears, exclaiming : " Ach, wie riihrend !"
I confess to having shared his sentiment ; and when the
whole elastic multitude dispersed, a shadowy vision of
the life of men swept through my soul, obscuring thought.
" Creatures of a day ; what is a man, and what is a man
not ?" The mysteries of the universe and the eternities
are prisoned in a single man ; and here there were men
by thousands rejoicing in their health and strength. Yet
man is but a dream about a shadow, a flower that
perisheth, a blade of grass that falls beneath the scythe.
And all those thousands with their souls mysterious, their
bodies beautiful and vigorous, must pass away. After but
half a century, how few of them, decrepit greybeards, wiU
be crawling on the earth they now so lightly spurn with
heels like those of feathered Hermes ? J. A. S.
180

TOBOGGANING ON A GLACIER
The SUvretta glacier, which is a very large one, descend
ing at various points into the upper vaUeys of Vorarlberg,
the vaUey of the Landquart, and the Upper Engadine,
hes about 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. It
stretches its enormous back for nearly twenty mUes
across the mountains ; and for the most part it is smooth
and void of those dangers which we connect with the
thought of a glacier. From its biUowy snow-fields start
great pyramids of rock — the Rothfluh, SUvrettahorn, and
Pitz Buin to eastward ; to the west the jagged Verstankla-
horner and gigantic Pitz Linard. Standing at the highest
point of the ridge which forms the watershed between the
Prattigau and Lower Engadine, one commands one of
the strangest and most fascinating views in Switzerland.
It is the enormous foreground of glacier which produces
this perhaps unique effect. For one's eyes are carried
over the great white snow-fields on the one hand down
to the vegetation of Prattigau, and thence up again to
the lower ranges of Casanna, Calanda, and Weissfluh, on
to Todi and the mighty giants of the Bernese Oberland —
the Jungfrau, Monch, and Eiger. Then, turning towards
the Engadine, one surveys, through a frame formed by
the rocks of Buin and Mittelhorn, the huge domed mass
of the Ortler, and, farther to the left, the ranges of Ber
nina, with Pitz Palii and Morteratsch. 181

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
I had never been in these regions, and their largeness
and beauty were a revelation to me when, in the late
October afternoon, I, with our guide, Herr Leonhard
Guler, his boy Christian, and a girl friend of mine, reached
the club-huts. We had left Davos in the morning and
driven up through the Vereina Thai to Sardasca — a
summer alp — where we ate our lunch sitting on the low
roof of the now deserted cow-stables. At 2.30 we started
upon our walk, and ascended the steep track, which wound
through rocks, scarce tufts of grass, and withering bU-
berry-bushes, into the barren domains of ice and stone
above. Our march was a very slow and laborious one,
for this reason : Herr Guler, who knows these parts weU,
being a native of them, and a guide and hunter over
them, had for a long time past entertained the brUliant
and adventurous plan of tobogganing down over a large
portion of the Silvretta glacier. As the autumn ad
vanced the surface grew ever smoother and more fit, and
he urgently entreated me to join his expedition. I
willingly went, rejoicing at the thought of such a novel
experience in my favourite sport. Four toboggans had,
therefore, to be carried up the 4,000 feet. Christian
Guler, being a taciturn youth of great determination,
shouldered three and started on in front, producing, as
he ascended through the alder-bushes, a very uncouth
effect. His father carried a fourth, and as few provisions
as four strong people could subsist upon for twenty-four
hours. The day was hot, and the earth extremely dry
after a period of three weeks' brUliant weather. We only
halted once ; and, for a smaU diversion, set the hUlside
on fire. Innumerable little flames ran swiftly over the
ground, leaving black tracks behind them. At 4.30 we
reached the club-hut. It is a tiny stone edifice — square,
with two little rooms, a table, some hay to sleep on, and
182

Tobogganing on a Glacier
a most superior iron stove. On this stove we cooked
some coffee. We had no milk. The weight of the tobog
gans had forbidden any needless luxuries. After our
coffee we hurried out with a rope and an ice-axe to make
a hasty survey of the ice-fall which breaks over the chffs
above Sardasca. The glacier was already in shadow
then, and a faint reflected glow from the sunset cast
strange grey-green lights down through the deep cre
vasses, where the unseen waters gurgled on mysteriously.
AU the upper peaks, however, glowed stiU for many
minutes with an intense crimson hue. Darkness fell
very suddenly, and we were forced to turn in early to
the huts. An old white hare bustled likewise home
among the boulders. A tin of mock turtle soup, added
to the guide's Mehlsuppe, formed our evening meal.
An ancient pack of cards was then produced, and the
evening was spent in the thrilling pursuit of " Schwarzer
Peter." A shrUl wind whistled down over the glacier
against the outside walls, but we were warm within, and
the light of a single candle cast our shadows round the
room. It was a wonderful world of snow and stars upon
which we gazed before we went to sleep.
At 3 a.m. we were aroused. The aspect of the sky had
greatly changed. The Great Bear had disappeared, but
the brilliant belt of Orion stood directly opposite, and
very near the Pleiades. The whole sky shimmered with
innumerable hghts, and the thin wind blew through the
unclouded air, down over the snow, as it had blown all
night. Weak black coffee and butterless bread is not
an appetizing meal whereof to partake at 3.30 a.m. At
least, those who have not won their night's rest on a truss
of hay might quarrel with it. I know that I was wiUing
enough to devour the meagre meal. At 4.30 we left the
huts, and, by the light of a single lantern, we commenced
183

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
our march. We were preceded by the lounging form of
the imperturbable Christian, who, with his back bowed
beneath the weight of three toboggans, and carrying a
bundle of sticks under his arm, might, as he walked against
the stars, have laid the foundation for many mountain
myths. We soon reached the glacier, and there welcomed
the faint light of dawn, which now became visible above
the sharp black ridge of the Rothfluh. One by one the
stars vanished, but the bitter night wind stUl struggled
with the smile of morn and cut against our faces. About
half an hour up the glacier we left our lantern and put
down the toboggans, for it was now easier to draw them
over the snow than to carry them. We then continued
our steady march for fully an hour and a half up over
the snow-fields, stopping about every forty yards to place
a stick in the snow, which should guide us on our down
ward tobogganing course. There was a sprinkling of
freshly faUen snow, from two to six inches deep in places,
and we trod through this rather sorrowfully, fearing less
it should interfere with our tobogganing projects.
One by one the great peaks rose behind us — one by one
the crimson rays of the rising sun caressed their glittering
summits. First Todi shone, then Eiger, Monch, Verstank-
lahorn, Ortler, and Palii. We were walking towards the
dawn, and the dawn was chasing back the earth-shadow —
which produced a line of purple lights, fringed with tawny
orange, in the pallid western sky.
At 7.30 we reached the top of the glacier, and there we
left our toboggans, intending to ascend the Pitz Buin.
But an unfortunate incident occurred which greatly
frightened and delayed us. My friend, unused to such
high altitudes and early rising, complained of feehng faint
from cold, and, upon examination, Herr Guler found that
her right hand was badly frost-bitten. This entailed fully
184

Tobogganing on a Glacier
an hour and a half of continuous rubbing ; but, thanks
to the sustained exertions of Guler, hfe was restored to
the frozen fingers, and we were able to return to the glacier
and to our toboggans. Christian and I took our seats at
once, and started slowly forward over the first gentle
incline. Guler foUowed in the rear, towing my scarcely
recovered friend at a pace which he made as moderate as
the steepness of the descent aUowed. It was my privilege
to ride a very superior racehorse ; but I soon saw to my
sorrow that Christian's progress was much faster than my
own, owing to the fact that he carried two alpenstocks,
with the help of which he propelled himself successfully
forward. So I hastened back to the starting-point,
picked up two of our remaining markers, and with these
sticks to push me on I rode in pursuit of the fast-disap
pearing Christian upon that immense expanse of virgin
snow. I can now only relate my own experiences of that
memorable ride. Smooth and very slowly at first ; then,
on a sudden, the runners of my toboggan glided easier —
then bounded forward. I realised that I was on the verge
of the great Kegel, or rounded summit, of the Silvretta
pass. Below me lay the biUowy sea of unending white ;
beyond that again broken bits of moraine ; then glimpses
of the verdurous Prattigau, surmounted by innumerable
ranges ending in T6di and the whole Bernese Oberland.
I could not fuUy reahse the superb immensity of that
Alpine view. I merely tore off my hat, leant back, lifted
my feet, and felt my toboggan springing forward into
space. Then followed the most breathless flight I have
ever known. Up dashed the fresh snow into my face,
filling my ears, my eyehds, my mouth and nostrils, and
plastering itself in upon my chest. AU power of control
ling my headlong course had vanished. I beheved I
185

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
invoked the Deity and myself to stop at once this mad
career. Then for a second aU consciousness of danger
forsook me. I was seized with the intoxication of move
ment, and hurled forward with closed eyes and lungs
choked by the driving snow, which rose in a cloud before
me. When I recovered my senses it was to find myself
launched forth upon a gentler slope, and many metres
to the left of the assigned course. A few feet in front of
me I became aware of an old scar of a crevasse. It was
neck or nothing, and I had no energy to stop. I shot
across it, and steered out upon the even plain of glacier.
I had descended, through the sunlight, in the space of five
minutes, a tract of snow-field which it had taken us over
an hour to climb at dawn.
Thus ended my ride. Gladly would I repeat it. My
companions foUowed. The tandem was not a speedy
affair, and wobbled heavily over the snow. Christian
had steered a longer course. His breath, too, was gone.
He let his toboggan shp as he dismounted, and it dashed
off riderless down to a smaU frozen lake by the moraine.
So he got up behind my sledge, and we went in pursuit.
We returned to the huts to pick up some small posses
sions, and at five in the afternoon of that same day we
reached Davos. We had had a unique experience, and
it had been acted on a stage worthy of its charm.
M. S.

186

HAY HAULING ON THE ALPINE SNOW
At the end of summer, when aU the hay of the lower
vaUeys has been gathered and housed, the peasants pro
ceed to the higher pastures, and there they mow and care
fully scrape together in the wUdest and steepest places,
and also in the pleasantest oases, those short and strongly-
scented grasses which grow so slowly and blossom so late
upon the higher mountains. This hay has a pecuhar and
very refined quality. It is chiefly composed of strong
herbs, such as arnica and gentian, and is greatly prized
by the peasants. The making of it is a process much
enjoyed, and families wUl sleep out upon the heights
above their homes for days together, tiU they have mown,
dried, and stacked the Berg-heu in those tiny huts which
are built low and firm on mountain-ridges. These huts
are then shut up and abandoned tiU winter snows have
faUen and the valley-hay has been consumed. Then
comes a novel form of tobogganing, where the peasants'
hard labour is salted with a pinch of exquisite excitement
and a dangerous joy. The men climb up through the deep
snow, dig out their huts, tie the hay into bundles, and
ride down upon it into the vaUey. This process is a diffi
cult and often a very perilous one ; for to steer such heavy
and unwieldy burdens over the sheer and perpendicular
descents is no light matter. A smooth track is soon formed,
and each day increases the speed of progression down it.
187

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Two nights ago a young peasant came to my father
and said he was bringing his hay from the Alps on the
Dorfliberg, and that we three girls might go with him,
which invitation we gladly accepted. We had clamoured
for it more loudly than ordinary young ladies clamour
for ball-cards. The thing was novel and very exciting,
owing to the element of risk which certainly attends it.
Accordingly, at ten yesterday morning we started and
drove to the foot of the mountain. There we left our
sledge, and began the ascent of such a track as I have
described above. There was not a cloud in the whole
sky, and although in the shade it was freezing hard, the
sun-heat was tremendous. We had never been on the
path before, and had some difficulty in disentanghng it
from other wood-tracks. But we followed the scent, so
to speak, by noting the remnants of hay which lay here
and there upon the snow, and we steered a straight course
up the indescribably steep ascent. At first we passed
over meadows, then struck into scattered forest. The
trees stood out almost black against a sky so solid in its
sapphire that it rivaUed the pines in depth of tone. The
road was very rough at first where wood-hauhng and horse-
traffic had broken into the lighter crust formed by the
descent of hay-bundles. But as we mounted higher the
path became a smooth, unbroken surface, so shiny, steep,
and even, that it was no longer possible to gain a footing
on its icy banks, and we had to turn off as the men who
had gone before us did, and chmb the mountain-side by
a series of short deep steps which they had cut into the
snow. This was a most laborious task ; but up and over
the slopes we clambered, and whenever we got to the top
of a ridge we beheld another ridge beyond it, with the
thin greened hay-track going up it straight as a dart, the
foot-steps by its side, and above the great white moun-
188

HAY HAULING ON THE ALPINE SNOW.

Hay Hauling on the Alpine Snow
tains, blazing, unbroken by any rock or shadow, under
the mid-day sun.
We were very hot and very anxious to push forward,
and we pulled ourselves up with scant intervals for breath
ing, tiU at length we came in sight of some men, with hay-
packs ready for the downward leap, upon the hiU-crest
over us. To them we waved with frantic joy, and pro
ceeded with renewed energy. But they were not our
men or our hay, and, seeing us, they came rushing over
the hUls on their bundles with such a vast amount of
" side " on that they lost control and feU. So we came
up with them, inquired our way, and told them of our
projects. Whereat they pointed out our distant destina
tion, and informed us that they considered ours a rash
and dangerous proceeding, and then we parted. We
were well above the forest now, and on the broad slopes
of the mountain. Great winds of winter had swept the
snow from ledges and silted it into gullies ; and there was
something intensely clean and smooth and large, away
from men and their ways, in that white landscape.
We stood 2,000 feet or more above the vaUey, in regions
wellnigh untrodden ; and here a light wind blew across
the snow-fields fuU of the scent of summer hay, for the
chalet doors were open wide, and some men were working
amongst the hay like moles where the great white tracts
of virgin snow were humped up on the edge of the hill,
and three chalets nestled all buried to their roofs in drift.
The men had dug a narrow track to the doors, which are
formed of boards placed lengthways and easily removed.
These were pulled away and a wealth of withered flowers
and grasses lay within in heaps upon the floors. The
pent-up scent of aU these summer flowers rushed out upon
the winter air, and burdened it with aromatic fragrance.
At last we reached our chalet — the highest one of all.
189

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Johannes and his cousin were taking out the hay in little
bundles, and building them up into layers of straw and
rope, to bind them into those firm packs on which we were
to travel down into the vaUey in the afternoon. It is
worth observing that the straw which serves to keep the
packs together has to be brought up on the backs of men
to these high regions. They seemed a trifle surprised to
see that we had reaUy kept our promise to come so far.
But they had long ago been warned of our approach, as
we carried with us a newly-acquired syren, into which we
blew incessantly when breath was attainable. There was
a smaU square place cut out around the door of the hut.
On all sides of this the snow rode in dense walls above our
shoulders. The houses and the big hotels looked very
small and mean down there, and the train, which crawled
along, seemed but a trivial thing, aU huddled, too, as these
objects were, in wreaths of smoke, whUst we— oh ! we
were up 2,000 feet above it aU, in the heart of a mountain
winter-world, with a dream of summer at our backs.
However, I do honestly think that we realised at first
the entire pleasures of the situation. We had clambered
up the snow slopes, " escalading, escalading those inter
minable stairs " for an hour and more, with the unclouded
glare of the mid-day sun upon our winter clothing. So
when we reached our destination it was to sink down with
an untold satisfaction under the shadow of the eaves
and partake of some refreshment in the shape of fig-jam
sandwiches. Then after that we looked around us.
Johannes and his cousin were slowly and surely making
up their bundles by binding them around with strong
rope. Their grey homespun coats fitted in with their
surroundings, and their strong, graceful movements were
pleasing to watch in idleness. The boy found that teeth,
as well as hands and feet, were helpful in his endeavours
190

Hay Hauling on the Alpine Snow
to secure a nice fat bundle. We crept through the door
of the tiny barn, and lay down in the shaft of sunlight on
the hay, picking among the grasses for famihar flowers.
So dry is the air at these heights that the blossoms retain
their colours in death, and we made up charming posies
of purple onions, daisies shining white, geums, forget-me-
nots, and primulas. Routing about in that grass, too,
the pollen dust arose as it would from a field in August,
and half-choked us, yet aU around lay the snows of an
Alpine winter, making the contrast strange. The bundles
were now made up, and we prepared to leave this pleasant
point upon the surface of the globe. One of the party
was heard to murmur that she " funked it hke jingo."
This was but a passing sentiment, of which I assumed
entire ignorance. The remainder of the hay was raked
tidily back into the barns, the doors closed — and we
started. There were six large packs of hay, each about 6 feet
long, 3 broad, and 4 high. These were divided in half,
and each three tied tightly together. My cousin and I
mounted upon the three first, my sister followed in soh
tary glory upon the last, with the boy to guide her.
Johannes went in front with his shoulders supporting the
foremost bundle, and guiding with his legs. We were
advised to combine a firm with a hght hold upon the cord
which surrounded the hay. I inclined, I beheve, to the
former hint, for, whatever happened to my steed during
that memorable ride, I always found myself firmly at
tached to its back, whether for better or worse I know not.
We started with a slow writhing movement which was
wholly pleasant. We slid and glided over the first snow-
field with enormous ease. Looking behind me I saw my
companions sitting as it were on the backs of nice green
snakes which wriggled noiselessly through sunlight and
191

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
through shade. But then we came to the end of gentle
meadow lands, and slowed off on the brink of a sheer
descent of some 300 feet, at the end of which the track
disappeared in the pine forest. For awhile we rested in
the sunhght on the plateau, and during that breathing
space an awful fear possessed me. But before I could
indulge my cowardice by flight we were off. The sluggish
snake now suddenly bounded forward, then bounced and
leapt along for a terrific minute, during which I realised
that the young man who guided it had lost aU control, and
that we were sliding over his prostrate form. Then the
writhing subsided into the quiet of a snow-drift. Jo
hannes emerged from under the hay unharmed. We
breathed once more, and turned to watch my Sister de
scending triumphant on a load which she gloried in
guiding. The descent recommenced. A yell from the front
warned us to duck under, as we shot through the first
skirts of forest, the branches breaking against our heads,
and out again down another shoot, steeper than the
first, but smooth, and ending in a flat meadow. There
was another pause, and then we plunged sheer into the
pinewood. The track was very narrow, and evidently
carried over the roughest ground, for it rose and feU in
mighty curves like the waves of the sea. (I might better
compare it to a switchback, only such pinchbeck con
trivances seem very far from the simphcity of mountain-
ways.) On either hand the solid trunks of fir-trees
stood to bruise the danghng and unwary toe. In the
middle of the wood another halt was called, and some
of the hay left behind to be fetched at a future period.
We were now requested to sit tight and look about us,
and it was grimly borne in upon our minds that a nasty
thing lay in front, as Johannes muttered that we were
192

Hay Hauling on the Alpine Snow
likely to find the way " komisch." But we had passed
through so much in such safety that I could not now feel
alarmed, and sat up very superior on my soft saddle.
Moreover, ignorance is bliss, and we could see nothing
ahead : the road seemed suddenly to disappear. The
cause of this disappearance was only too manifest the
next minute, for, after a luU, a lurch much more tre
mendous than any before experienced warned us of a
real danger. We were shot forward down a narrow
gully between high trees, and precipitated at an angle
which seemed absolutely perpendicular. To increase the
terror of that minute the hay-snake seemed to have
assumed a diabohcal personahty. It hit Johannes about
the head, jumped over him, stiU bearing us powerless
upon its back, and then it literally ramped forward into
an abyss, darkened by the depth of forest. We obeyed
orders, my cousin and I — we sat tight, with our hearts
anywhere but in the right position. Then we were
thrown to the ground.
The next thing I was aware of was a dead halt, with
the hay on the top of me, and my fingers stiU tightly
holding the rope, my cousin in the same position, and the
figure of our driver emerging from a drift far above in
the wood. No one was hurt, and the trees surveyed the
havoc with profound serenity. The descent had been in
aU ways up to our expectations. Its dangers added to
its excitement, and its excitement to its charm. We
shook ourselves together, and plunged for some minutes
along a deep track of level woodland, then out of the
trees at last, and down more meadows into the open
vaUey. M. S.

193

A FOUR DAYS' SLEIGH-DRIVE
There is a great monotony in a mountain winter. A
desire for change must inevitably be bred in the minds
of those who have hved, week after week, month after
month, within the limits of one narrow valley, with
nothing but white and black to mark the weU-known
mountains and equaUy familiar meadows, dear though
they be. Just a slight variation, even of outline in the
hiUs, is all that the restless soul requires ; and a small
local journey in a sledge has a great charm and fascina
tion. Such a journey had, in the winter of 1888, been much
talked about by my father and me. We proposed to
leave Davos one day, and, going by Wiesen to Chur,
reach Thusis, see the Via Mala under its winter aspect,
then return home by the Schyn Pass and Tiefenkasten.
But the weather had kept us back — the severe winter
weather and heavy snow which so mercilessly visited the
High Alps that season.
As soon as the weather seemed settled, and the roads
were in passable condition, we started. At nine o'clock
we left Davos, packed tightly and warmly into our open
sledge, with the driver and two portmanteaus up behind.
The vaUey lay smiling placidly — an interminable stretch
of white, with the water-mists slowly rising and vanish
ing from the river under the rays of the newly-risen sun.
194

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
The road to Wiesen had only been open two days since
the heavy snows. This road, or that part of it which is
called the Ziige (in Enghsh, " Tracks of Avalanches "),
is one of the most dangerous passes in the Canton.
Numerous avalanches had fallen, both in the narrow
gorge and higher up at Glaris, occasioning in two cases
loss of hfe, and stopping aU traffic. Very few would go
there for pleasure, unless, perhaps, such pleasure as is
born of curiosity. The Ziige, even in the softness of
summer-time, is, at its best, grand and terrific ; but on
that morning, as we drove through, it was ugly in its
terror, wicked in grandeur. The largest avalanche had
fallen just below the village of Glaris. I beheve that an
Englishman who ventured down to inspect it returned
crestfaUen, declaring himself disappointed by the sight,
for he could, he said, see no more in this snow than in
any other snows. Perhaps it was well for him that he
could not. The avalanche swept through a narrow
couloir, having gathered in its furious descent aU the
snows from the mountain-sides. When it came to rest
at last in the flat of the vaUey, it heaped itself out in a
fan shape, crossing the river, and swinging up the oppo
site mountain. Wherever its mighty wind passed it
mowed off the tops of the tough larch and pine-trees as
though they were blades of grass. So the post-road
was suddenly lifted to an altitude of from 50 to 60 feet
above its usual level. We drove very stealthily over
the snow mountain, and as we descended the other side
we came upon a scattered crowd of peasants digging still
in search of a comrade who had been swept away six days
before. They had been digging, these fifty men, for five
days, and had not found his corpse. After this we
plunged into the gorge below Hoffnungsau. Here every
curve of snow was a miracle, as it clung about the stern
195 n 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
precipitous rocks. But something in the cold wicked
ness of this seemingly soft substance fiUs one with
horror when one has learnt its force. I could not forget
its cruel violence as we drove across innumerable
avalanches, faUen so close upon each other that the road
had taken the form of some hard frozen sea of biUows ;
nor, as we gaUoped through the dark rock-tunnels draped
with weird icicles, did I forget ; no, it was impossible to
forget the look of dismal despair upon the faces of those
fifty hard-working men digging for the comrade they had
lost, and whose body only the warmth of summer suns
would return to them.
I think that my father and I were both weU pleased
when Wiesen was reached — sunny, hospitable Wiesen,
perched smilingly upon its steep hiUside. Sitting on
the balcony after lunch, with the great snow-sweeps of
Pitz Michel and the Tinzenhorn stretching out before us,
we could converse with our host at ease upon the dangers
of our morning drive, and listen to his account of the
serious perils of the Ziige road.
At three o'clock we prepared to take a short walk, but
other and unexpected pleasures awaited us. As we
stroUed down the viUage street we found that the whole
place was in a state of great excitement. " Heute wird
Theater gespielt in Schmitten," we were informed by
some eager young ladies who were busily packing them
selves into their sledges. " Let us go, too, and see this
play in Schmitten," I cried ; and accordingly we went.
Our sledge was soon ready, and I in it, hastening after
the merry band in front. Hans jodled loudly and joy-
fuUy on the board behind, and cracked his whip over
Ruedi, our horse's ears, who, much elevated also, plunged
down the steep road snorting vigorously, and kicking the
snow in baUs upon my face, as though he shared the
196

THE TINZENHORN.

. - Jt>. "Al.--

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
general rejoicing. The pleasure of that sunny drive was
short, and soon the doU-church of Schmitten was seen,
perched on its high hUlside. We drew up before the door
of the viUage inn, whose hospitable landlord came out
to meet us. " Alas, you are late, meine Herren," he
cried. " The play has already begun. Go in, go in."
So in we went, having paid the modest entrance fee of
50 centimes apiece.
Such an atmosphere ! But then the outdoor air was
cold, and the contrast naturally striking. A prevailing
sense of tobacco smoke, old Sunday clothes, and hot
working people — that was all. We crowded on to a
narrow bench, the audience, with most pohshed courtesy,
squeezing itself to give us room ; and then we entered as
best we could into the spirit of the performance. Pre
vious to our arrival the great coup of the piece had
already taken place, and all the actors were to the fore.
(I noticed throughout that when once an actor had come
upon the boards he never again left themtUl the curtainfeU.
He stayed to the last, even as a sort of mute encumbrance.)
The stage was a miracle of peasant artifice. Footlights
there were none ; but a paraffin lamp, swinging from the
ceiling, cast a grim and fitful glare over the faces of the
performers. The platform was very slightly raised
above the audience, and portioned off by airUy-hung
sheets. The drop-curtain consisted of a yellow bed
cover, and the stage decorations of two stunted geraniums
grown in potted-meat tins. The ball-room of a viUage
inn at Schmitten is, of course, not large, but the in
habitants of Schmitten are large and well-grown men.
The tall bodies of the actors seemed at times to over
whelm the tiny theatre, while their heads were not seldom
hidden by the front boarding. Their costumes were
varied and grotesque. The earnestness of their expres-
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
sion and the stohd repetition of their gestures struck one
with a sense of the marveUous. No art could have made
them act their parts to the hfe as these men did, simply
because the " Hausknecht," the Swiss soldier, the
" Notar," the " Polizei," aU were by nature and pro
fession what they represented histrionically ; and they
were it admirably. Such simplicity is surely to be ad
mired ; for it cannot long continue, even in Schmitten.
Perhaps the great want of aU dramatic action in the
people might have been lamented by some spectators ;
but this very want, combining as it did with the total
void of plot in either of the pieces chosen, seemed to me
to constitute the chief comic element of the performance.
For instance : a taU gentleman in a chimney-pot hat,
upon finding his long-lost son and wife, betrayed no
greater signs of pleasure or astonishment than by drawing
his hand pensively across his brow and sighing. Another,
upon being accused of theft and murder, merely smUed
placidly across the trembling bayonets pointed at his
person, limply raising his arm as a token of mild protest.
One young and ardent lover in white gloves, it is true,
rose to a pitch of poetic admiration when he compared
the mistress of his affections to a " pyramid." I think
the supreme consciousness of those white gloves lent him
something like the polish of an artist.
When the performance was over we packed ourselves
into the sledge again, and were soon crawling up the hill
down which we had come so gaily two hours before.
The sun had set and a grey mist crept over the blue sky.
The long winter night was closing in quickly, touching
the distance with shadowy vapours, and making both
mind and body sleepy. The stiUness of the way was only
broken faintly by the thin shrill voices of the girls behind
us, who were singing their songs into the winter twilight.
198

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
Perhaps those who keep high holiday in the lowlands
during carnival time do not imagine that their more sober
mountain brethren keep it too, and do so heartily.
Wiesen was reached at last, and after a comfortable
little supper-party in the parlour of our host and his wife,
we all repaired to the baU-room. It was a smaU room —
very full of tobacco and steam — steam produced by the
snow brought in on the hobnailed boots of the men.
The scene, when once we had become accustomed to the
murky light and thick air, was a most entertaining one.
When Biindners dance, they usuaUy become a little
animated ; but when Biindners put on fancy-dress, the
effect produced is startling and supreme. Of all those
present, the most imposing figure was a tall washer
woman who, for the occasion, had stepped into her great
grandfather's shoes, swallow-tail coat, knee-breeches,
and white night-cap. She was dancing vigorously in a
very determined manner, stamping the buckled shoes,
and tossing the tassled night-cap. But if her costume
appeared grotesque, there were others again which were
extremely chic, which, in fact, possessed a something of
Parisian freshness, forming a strange contrast to the
rusticity of their surroundings. For instance, a young
lady dressed to personate an Itahan contadina, with
dainty white arms and quite coquettish mien ; a fairy
like damsel, too, in airy blue tuUe skirts and velvet bodice
— these two were the beUes of the baU, and, be it forgiven
to their souls, they knew it. Those who had neither time
nor money to provide costumes were quite content to
appear with corked faces. SmUing benignly, I watched
them pass, mightily pleased, as it appeared, with the
economy-combining effect of their appearance. A nigger
in white linen performed the buffoon of the evening,
roUing on the floor with the intention of, if possible,
199

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
tripping up the couples as they turned. AU in that ball
room seemed highly pleased with their performance, but
I, after such an eventful day, was very wiUing to retire
early to rest.
We awoke to a dull sunrise. Much knowledge of
mountain weather made us aware that the smoky flakes
of cloud creeping so stealthily around the mountain-tops
boded no good for the coming day. At nine o'clock we
left Wiesen in the covered post-sledge. My father got a
seat on the box with the postUlion, but I was forced to
resign myself to the " Kasten " (closed box), as the
people of the country caU the vehicle. At Crapaneira,
however, I parted company with the Kasten, vowing
that thither I would not return unless upon the strongest
compulsion. " Where, then, wiU you go ?" inquired our
affable conductor (guard of the post-carriage), smihng
blandly upon the imbecility of my talk. " Why, upon
the luggage," I answered promptly ; and upon the
luggage we accordingly went — my father and I. The
luggage is always conveyed in a low sledge, which is
attached to the post-sledge by a long pole and a hook.
It was a warm dull morning. Our two portmanteaus
made an admirable perch, and with our legs swinging
airily just off the ground and much good talk, we lurched
and bumped cheerfully on to Lenz, pretending to think
that we had found the spring, because a tuft or two of
heather was in bloom on the rocks round the ruins of
Belfort. These, alas, were vain dreams, for a driving
wind was hurrying the scattered sleet across the Lenzer
Heide, and the outside air no longer spoke of spring.
By this time, too, we had been forced to resume our
places in the Kasten. While my father engaged a local
magnate, our companion, in conversation on parochial
topics, I tried, by dint of flattening my nose against the
200

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
window, to see something of the outside world. But the
Lenzer Heide is not a cheerful corner of the world even
in summer-time. Dreary and desolate then, it was now
only one great bare wilderness of snow. Snow fallen,
snow falhng, snow blown by the wind in wreaths and fitful
eddies. At times the waUs of snow through which our
road was dug rose to a level of two feet above the roof
of the carriage, and then I could, of course, see nothing
at all. At Parpan a fat old Landammann got into the
Kasten. He was a portentous person, with polished
manners ; and the general sense of squeeze and heat was
now complete. He informed us with glee and import
ance that we might expect to find a very gay state of
affairs in Chur, where carnival festivities were at their
highest. " Yes," he added, consulting his watch, " you
may even arrive in time to see the procession." AU my
attention was therefore directed to catch the first ghmpse
of Chur.
Chur appeared at last. From the post-road one looks
down into it with aU its little old houses neatly packed
together under their big mountains. I reahzed that its
streets were crowded with people. The carnival pro
cession had just arrived upon the bridge we had to cross,
and we were forced, by the throng of people, to draw up
before it. " Come with me. Get on to the box,"
shrieked our conductor in my ear ; then seizing my arm
in his enthusiasm he puUed me up to the high perch,
where I sat jammed in between himself and the postillion,
seeing all that was to be seen, and mightUy pleased with
the show. The metropolis of Graubiinden had been to
me always the sleepy little old Swiss town, such as my
readers also probably remember it. Now it was wide
awake and full of bustle. The procession consisted of
a troop of Chinamen, a set of gaudily-attired gentlemen
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
on foot and horseback, with a confused crowd of masks
and dressed-up respectabihties — the whole enveloped in
a snow-storm. Having seen all I could, I was preparing to get off the
box and complete my journey in the Kasten. I knew
by hearsay how refined and aristocratic are the ladies of
Chur, and did not wish to be perceived by them driving
on the box of the coach in the train of King Carnival. In
an awful moment, however, the postillion drew himself
together, and cracked his long whip loudly. Away we
started. The dense crowd broke, laughing and shouting,
before the post and its four horses. Over the bridge and
under the triumphal arches we plunged, greeted with
yeUs, and besieged with missUes from the masqueraders.
I felt the feather tremble on my hat, and the crowd
swam in a sea below me, when, suddenly casting my eyes
up along the rows of windows which lined the street, I
awoke to the ghastly consciousness that close to their
panes were glued the faces of pyramids of ladies of Chur
watching me. There was no consolation. The very
sky showered a watery snow upon me. But help was at
hand. A masked gentleman in plumes, velvet, and
tights, dashed his bladder (they aU carried these instru
ments of torture, and used them freely on the faces and
backs of spectators) into the nose of our off leader. The
situation threatened to become tragic. The insulted
steed kicked and plunged. The postillion, who had
checked all former insolences with the unreserved use of
his whip, now cursed aU his surroundings. The crowd
pushed back. The masqueraders became alarmed. The
inhabitants of a car of aborigines cowered down in their
straw. But this diversion had cleared the way ; and,
gathering our forces together, we tore forth into the open
road and reached the post-house in safety. Here we were
202

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
met by the landlord of the " Weisse Kreuz," and having
taken up our quarters in his old-fashioned inn, we again
went forth into the streets.
This time we were introduced into the drawing-room
of a very aristocratic mansion, whose owners had invited
us to witness the procession from its windows. The
maskers made a fine picture as they passed slowly under
the massive towered gateway, a dim reflected snow-hght
shimmering on the gilded hands of the clock, and across
the winged helmets of the soldiers. The sUent snow which
feU so steadUy upon the green velvet jerkins and hose of
these men had fallen upon the same clothes many years
before, when they were worn by the knights of Grau
biinden ; therefore the falhng flakes rather heightened
than spoilt the effect of their slow march through the
narrow street. The Chinamen, it is true, looked out of
place, and their stiff print costumes had become limp and
sordid. When the show was over, we returned to our
inn. The evening had set in, and it was pleasant to rest
quietly after our long day.
With a crackling fire and a good book I could sit down
in my arm-chair and think calmly over my afternoon
entrance into Chur. And considering it, I became glad.
" For," I thought, " if ever I hve to see the day when
Chur has indeed developed into a metropohs, when her
streets are broadened, her ladies become too numerous
to be critical, when the old Kasten is abolished and steam-
trams and steam-engines convey the inquisitive tourist
to her hotels, and sully with their soot her quiet snow —
then I shall recall the day with pride and joy on which I
entered her streets at carnival time upon the box of the
old stage-coach." Thus thinking, I opened my window
and looked out over the sloping roofs into the still night.
The stars were shining brilliantly up there in the deep
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
black of the winter sky. Faint sounds of carnival
revelry broke the air. " That time must be a long way
off," I thought ; and closing my window I went to bed.
The next morning was cold and fine. Everything
bore a new sharp aspect in the early light ; the very
gutters were turned to sUver runnels of pure ice. Only
the sun was missing — the sun which never rises upon
Chur during three months of winter, so high are the
mountains which surround this tiny city. StiU, there
is a curious charm about the calm tranquillity of the sun
less winter days. We were to leave Chur at nine, but
not, I entreated, without first going up to the cathedral.
So we breakfasted early, and were out in the sleepy
streets soon after eight, climbing the steep hUl, down
which the boys of the Cantonal-Schule were hastening
to class in their blue coats. One has to climb a long way
up by the city waUs before one reaches the open square
in front of the Miinster. We found the great doors of
the cathedral closed. The Lombard lions which guard
the gates seemed frozen and asleep. The rough-hewn
stones of the facade seemed frozen too. I had only seen
the cathedral in summer-time. In winter it has a more
majestic beauty, when its block of black buUdings stands
forth in strange relief against the snow of distant moun
tains. We went into the churchyard, which lies along a
narrow plateau behind the cathedral, and under the
vineyards. The sun was just tipping its high wall ; only
the tops of the black crosses with their traUing crape
bands appeared above the tranquil sea of snow. Beyond,
across the Rhine, the mountains of the Oberland — Todi
and his comrades — were shining in a blaze of the morning
sun. Below, again, was the sleepy town buried deep in
its winter shadow. 204

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
I was very anxious to enter the cathedral before leav
ing. Still more anxious was I to talk with its old sac
ristan, whose language, manners, and appearance have
always fascinated me. So we went to his house, and he
came out, carrying his big keys, and took us into the
Miinster. It was very cold in there, and grim with the
rugged irregular architecture and the smeU of frozen
incense, but beautiful. " Schon ist sie nicht, aber uralt,"
cried the old man, singing his eternal note of praise,
always the same, and always apologetically pathetic.
He lighted a long wax taper, which he took off the altar,
and led us down into the crypt to see the bits of carving
on the piUars, left there by the Romans 1,700 years
ago. These piUars are still unchanged, though times
and religions have changed. The place is no longer a
temple dedicated to Mars, the God of War, where Roman
matrons witnessed sacrifice, but has become a Christian
seat of worship, where the good ladies of Chur can teU
their beads on Sundays and on feast-days, sitting com
fortably in their wooden pews, and criticising their
neighbours' skirts and bonnets.
When we left the crypt, my old friend the sacristan
led us to a favourable point, commanding a full view of
the new organ. It is indeed a hideous object, erected,
" regardless of taste, by some architects of Vienna," the
old man explained. " Schon ist es nicht, it is not even
alt," he cried. " They do not comprehend the Beautiful,
and they are going the right way to turn my Miinster into
a bedchamber. I cannot endure to see this place, which
I have lived in and loved for forty years, spoUt by ignorant
men, and I am glad that my time is nearly up — I am glad
to die." After this burst of indignation the venerable
man went on to explain, in the suave and altered tones of
a court-gentleman, that it was the day of St. Valentine.
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Mass had been said very early, and he had been up on the
roofs scraping away the ice and snow — hence his
" neglige !" He need not thus have excused himself.
The " neglige " only heightened the picturesque in his
appearance. We were obliged to quit the cathedral and the sacristan
and to return to our inn. The sledge was ready — an open
one this time, with a joUy httle black horse — and we were
soon swinging away at a brisk trot over the frozen roads
to Thusis. It was a dehghtful little bit of journey, though
the cold was intense, and a tearing wind, sweeping down
the Rheinthal, bit through all our furs and wraps. But
the sun shone with unusual brUhancy, and all the country
smiled back under its dazzling glow. Grim as it ever is,
the castle of Rhazuns, with its blank yellow waUs rising
from the mound above the moat, its towers and melan
choly poplar trees, caught the sunlight gladly, and shone
back like a jewel over the grey yawning chasm of the
Rhine. We reached Thusis at twelve, and were received by
our host at the Rhatia with his usual hospitality. We
were glad to thaw a little, and to eat a good lunch in the
pleasant warmth of the Stube. After our meal we started
in an open sledge up the Via Mala. Herr Lamalta drove
his small black horse at a great rate, whilst his fat black
dog came puffing behind. The wind had died away, and
a feeling of coming spring was in the air. I could see,
with joy, the creeping ivy plants round the stems of silver
pines, and the hepatica leaves darting, heart-shaped,
through the melting snow. A balmy scent of newly-
felled trees was abroad in the air, and the woodmen were
carting down great yeUow trunks through precipitous
tracks on to the post-road. Yet those who watched the
primrose budding in green English lanes, and the new
206

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
grass covering the meadows, would have laughed at my
spring-dreams and called them mad.
Perhaps you may know the Via Mala only in summer
time ; and perhaps when first you saw it you had just
crossed the Splugen, your mind full of the delicious
warmth of spreading chestnut groves away across the
pass in Italy. Then, the eternal majesty of these grey
rocks struck you with horror, whUe the dust on that
winding road half-choked you. Now, you would indeed,
as I did, have found things changed. Driving noise
lessly over the snow-road between the solemn pines, and
gazing up those chasms and impending precipices, you
would have felt yourselves in quite another world. There
was not much snow within the gorge, but every drop of
water which could freeze had frozen into sohd ice and
hung suspended — huge pendants of airy colour, like the
bluest blue of an Italian sky and the green of a summer
sea — upon sheer rugged cliffs, from the woods above down
to the dark abyss below, through which one heard, but
could not see, the Rhine. They took away the harsh
ness of the chffs — those great ice-pillars — and added
something inexpressibly beautiful, strange, and weird.
Andersen, I thought, would have loved to lay the scene
here of one of his fairy stories. It is easy, indeed, to
picture to oneself ice-maidens and ideal airy forms sport
ing through the winter days in and out of those blue caves
and frozen streams, so far apart from anything we know
on earth, and never touched by hand or foot of mortal
man. Not an unclean speck enters or can ever enter
into the stiUness of those crystal waters ; only the blue
light of heaven plays through them, and the sunbeams
kiss them softly. They cannot be spoiled by any touch
of change, for before the summer suns and dust are come,
their every trace will have melted away. But my
207

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
memory of them can never melt away. I only wish that
I could describe their beauty better to my readers, that
something of the glory of those ice - fabrics might
remain with them too, and be to them as near a revela
tion of ideal beauty in the mind as they will ever be
with me.
We left our sledge at the point where the second bridge
spans the chasm. The snow lay so deep upon the narrow
bridge that the parapet had almost disappeared. We
could stand here, and make huge snowballs and toss them
down the 300 feet into the water which bofled below ;
and it was a wUd joy to me to see them disappearing in
the angry clutches of the Rhine.
We rested for a short time at ZUlis ; and there, in the
inn, we discussed various topics with the handsome half-
Italian landlady. We talked of rice-fields, Indian corn,
and the dangers arising from scorpion stings. " A curious
contrast," I thought, as 1 sat in the broad panelled win
dow-seat, looking out over the white far-stretching snow-
fields of the Hinter Rheinthal.
Then we drove home quickly by the way we had come.
Ice, snow, rocks, and trees, were melting into the grey
harmony of coming darkness. One great ice-pillar
thrown out from the lip of a precipice, 60 or 70 feet in
height, and standing quite free from the waU of rock,
loomed like a great blue never-to-be-forgotten dream
into the winter twihght. It was the finest icicle that we
had seen — so strong, so firm, and yet so ethereally fragUe.
I was sorry when we drew up in the dusk before our inn
at Thusis — sorry to know that the mysteries of the Via
Mala lay behind, and that this was the last of our journey.
The next day we rose before it was light, since we were
to take the early post via the Schyn to Davos. When
208

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
dressed, a despairing cry from my father's room bade me
look out upon the weather. This I did, and the sight
which welcomed me, though beautiful, was by no means
a pleasing one. Through the shimmering light of a grey
dawn the snow was falhng steadUy with that stiU per
sistency which, to eyes accustomed to the sight, bodes no
good. One foot of snow had already faUen during the
hours of night. The vUlage street was an unbroken sea of
white. The little tree-twigs in the garden opposite were
laden heavily, save where a disconsolate and ruffled
sparrow shook the snow off them with his drooping
wings. It was not a difficult matter to decide that this
was no day for the Schyn Pass and the Ziige, but that
our way lay back by Chur and Landquart. Thirteen
hours of continuous driving in a snow-storm may not
appear an enlivening prospect to those who have not
tried it, but they need not dread it if they ever have to
face it. I myself have found it very pleasant.
We took extra post, dawdled away some time, and at
9.30 a.m. we left Thusis. The road was like a ploughed
field. Our horses plunged up to their knees. The
driving snow beat against our windows and penetrated
every crack of the old covered sledge. It was a quite
horrid old sledge, I regret to say, and a tom-cat had
evidently made it his headquarters during the winter
months, also some spiders with decorative ideas, for the
roof was hung with airy webs. I opened my window,
with the result that the snow drove in and covered me ;
not that I cared, provided I could see the world outside.
It was a beautiful world of snow — very different to what
we are accustomed to in our more bleak and rugged home.
Through the falling flakes I could see, as in a dream, the
banks and fields through which we crawled along. Every
twig in the shadowy beech-woods and copses was a
209 o

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
miracle, so closely and so hghtly did the fresh snow chng
and weave into wonderful forms. Then the orchards in
the far-spreading snow-fields ! Four years ago I saw
fruit growing for the first time in Switzerland on these
same trees — large red-faced apples and dehcious golden
pears, all aglow in the warmth of an autumnal sky. Now
they were scarcely recognisable. Pears and apples
had changed to snow-like things in a fairy tale. To
beheve that seven months hence that same glory would
reappear was an impossibility.
No sun feU on the waUs of Rhazuns to-day as we passed
it by. The high poplar-trees round the castle raised
their heads, very stiU, like shadows, into the thick air.
The mysterious sloping roofs and turrets were white.
The grimness of the river-bed and the greyness of those
ancient waUs were now in harmony with one another.
The river sent up a filmy mist to creep about the
turrets, and over aU feU the quiet flakes of snow-like
sleep. Carnival time was over in Chur as we drove through
to the station, and her streets presented the deserted
untidiness of past gaieties. The short piece of raUway
to Landquart was made even longer and slower than it
usuaUy is — if that were possible — by the heavy snow
which clogged the line. At Landquart we took our places
in the post, and settled down peacefully for the seven
hours' drive before us. The snow had faUen slowly and
ceaselessly ever since six o'clock in the morning, when
first we looked from our windows at Thusis. It was
falling with the same slow persistency when, at half-past
nine that night, we reached home.1
' Such a journey as this produces no fatigue, no sense of
1 This was written in 1888, before the railway had been made
from Landquart up to Davos. 210

A Four Days' Sleigh-Drive
weariness. It is monotonous, but not disagreeable. One
f aUs into a sort of mental lethargy, and the scenes through
which one passes leave but half-reahsed pictures, dreamy
and very pleasant, on the brain — pictures where every
thing is like one vast bUlowy sea of never-ending snow,
out of which the muffled objects start like shadows, or
as the sinking waves upon a slumbrous ocean.
M. S.

211 o 2

A PAGE OF MY LIFE1
How am I to fulfil the promise I have made of writing
" A Page of My Life "? My life is so monotonous
among those mountains of Graubiinden — the snow-
landscape around me spreads so uniform beneath the
burning sun or roof of frozen cloud, that a month, a week,
a day, detached from this calm background, can have
but little interest for actors on the wide stage of the
world. Twelve years ago I came to Davos, broken down in
1 This article was written at the request of the editor of the Fort
nightly Review. He wished me to give some notion of the conditions
under which my hfe and work had been conducted since I was obhged
to settle at Davos. I selected what may very truly be called a few
" specimen days." Still it must not be imagined that the whole of
my time is spent in this manner. Were that the case, I could not
have produced so much literature as I have done in the space of the
last fourteen years : to wit, two volumes of Itahan Sketches, four
volumes of Renaissance in Italy, four volumes of original verse, two
volumes of translated verse, three volumes of Enghsh biography
(Shelley, Sidney, Ben Jonson), one volume on the Early English Drama,
translations of two lengthy Itahan autobiographies, two volumes of
Essays Speculative and Suggestive, two volumes on the Life of Michel
angelo Buonarroti, the present volume, and a considerable amount of
work for the Encyclopasdia Britannica and other publications. In
truth, I have been able to labour hard at my chosen craft, while the
open-air Ufe in a mountain country, of which so much is recorded in
this book, has been very serviceable to me as a student.
J. A. S. (February, 1892).
212

A Page of My Life
health, and with a poor prospect of being able to prolong
my days upon this earth. I did not mean to abide here,
but having regained a httle strength, I hoped to pass the
winter in a NUe boat. The cure of lung disease by Alpine
air and sun and cold was hardly known in England at that
time. When I found my health improve beyond all
expectation, the desire to remain where I was, to let well
alone, and to avoid that fatiguing journey to Cairo, came
over me. Slung in my hammock among the fir-trees of
the forest, watching the August sunlight slant athwart
the branches, the squirrels leap from bough to bough
above my head, it seemed to me that life itself would not
be worth living at the price of perpetual travelling in
search of health. I was thirty-six years of age ; and,
reviewing the twenty-three years which had elapsed since
I went to Harrow as a boy of thirteen, I found that I had
never spent more than three months in one place. At aU
hazards I resolved to put an end to these peregrinations,
looked the future calmly in the face, and wrote twenty-
two sonnets on " The Thought of Death." Then I in
formed my good and famous physician in London that
I meant to disobey bis orders and to shut myself up for
the next seven months in this snow-bound valley. He
rephed that " if I liked to leave my vile body to the
Davos doctors, that was my affair ; he had warned me."
In the following spring I composed an article on my ex
perience, which was printed in a number of the Fort
nightly Review, and which contributed something, per
haps, to the foundation of the English colony at Davos-
Platz.1 Since then, Davos has been my principal place of
residence. I have worked incessantly at hterature —
publishing more than twenty volumes, besides writing a
1 See the first essay printed in this volume.
213

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
large amount of miscellaneous matter, and three volumes
which stUl remain inedited. The conditions under which
these tasks have been performed were not altogether
favourable. Every book I needed for study and refer
ence had to be dragged to the height of 5,400 feet above
the sea. A renowned Oxford scholar was paying me a
visit once, when, looking round my modest shelves, he
exclaimed, with the sardonic grin pecuhar to him :
" Nobody can write a book here !" I knew that it was
very difficult to write a good book in Davos ; that I
could not hope to attain perfection or fullness of erudition
in the absence from great libraries, in the deprivation of
that intellectual stimulus which comes from the clash of
mind with mind. But my desire has always been to
make the best of a bad business, and to turn drawbacks,
so far as in me lay, into advantages. Therefore I would
not aUow myself to be discouraged at the outset. I
reflected that the long leisure afforded by Davos, my
seclusion from the petty affairs of society and business,
and the marvellous brain-tonic of the mountain air,
would be in themselves some compensation for the loss
of privileges enjoyed by more fortunately situated
students. Moreover, I have never been able to take
literature very seriously. Life seems so much graver,
more important, more permanently interesting than
books. Literature is what Aristotle caUed Siaywyrj — an
honest, healthful, harmless pastime. Then, too, as Sir
Thomas Browne remarked, "it is too late to be am
bitious." Occupation, that indispensable condition of
mental and physical health, was ready to my hand in
hterary work ; and I determined to write for my own
satisfaction, without scrupulous anxiety regarding the
result. The inhabitants of the vaUey soon attracted my atten-
214

A Page of My Life
tion. I resolved to throw myself as far as possible into
their friendship and their life. These people of Grau
biinden are in many ways remarkable and different from
the other Swiss. It is not generaUy known that they
first joined the Confederation in the year 1803, having
previously, for nearly four centuries, constituted a
separate and independent State — highly democratic in
the forms of government, but aristocratic in feeling and
social customs, proud of their ancient nobility, accustomed
to rule subject Italian territories and to deal with sove
reigns as ambassadors or generals. These peculiarities
in the past history of the Canton have left their traces
on the present generation. Good breeding, a high
average of intelligence, active political instincts, manli
ness and sense of personal freedom, are conspicuous even
among the poorest peasants. Nowhere, I take it, upon
the face of the earth, have republican institutions and
republican virtues developed more favourably. Nowhere
is the social atmosphere of a democracy more agreeable
at the present moment. What I have learned from my
Graubiinden comrades, and what I owe to them, cannot
be here described in fuU. But their companionship has
become an essential ingredient in my life — a healthy and
refreshing relief from sohtary studies and incessant quill-
driving. So much about my existence as a man of letters at
Davos had to be premised in order that the " Page of My
Life " which I have promised should be made intel
ligible. And now I reaUy do not know what page to
tear out and present here. Chance must decide. My
desk-diary for this year (1889) happens to lie open at
the date February 28. That page will do as well as
any other.
Friends are kind enough to come and stay with us
215

;Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
sometimes, even in the winter. We had been enjoying
visits from one of the British Museum librarians, from
an eminent Enghsh man of letters and his more than
beautiful wife, and also from a Secretary of Legation
to one of the German Courts. During the first two
months of the year sleighing-parties, toboggan-races, and
the other amusements of the season had been going for
ward. I was further occupied with founding a gym
nasium for the young men of Davos, which occasioned
endless colloquies at night in the dusky rooms of the old
Rathhaus, foUowed by homeward walks across the noise
less snow, beneath the sharp and scintfllating stars. AU
this while I had been correcting the proofs of my book
on Carlo Gozzi, and composing four laborious essays on
that puzzling phenomenon which we call " Style." I
was fairly tired, and wanted a change of scene. So I
proposed to one of my daughters that we should pay a
long-contemplated visit to some Swiss friends hving at
Ilanz in the Vorder-Rheinthal, or, as it is also caUed, the
Bundner Oberland.
Behold us starting, then, for our thirteen hours'
sleighing journey, wrapped from head to foot in furs !
It is about half-past six on a cold grey morning, the ther
mometer standing at 3° Fahr., a sombre canopy of mist
threatening snow, and the blue-nosed servants of the
watering-place torpidly shivering back to their daUy
labours like congealed snakes. Davos-Platz does not
look attractive at this hour of a winter morning, when the
chimneys of the big hotels and bakehouses are pouring
forth spirals of tawny smoke, which the frozen air repels
and forces back to blend with vapours lying low along
the stream. Tearing through the main street on such
occasions, I always wonder how long what boasts to be
a "Luft kur-ort," or health resort, depending on the
216

A Page of My Life
purity of air for its existence, wUl bear the strain of
popularity and rapid increase.
As we break away into the open country these gloomy
thoughts are dispelled. For now the sun, rising behind
the mountains of Sertig in gold and crimson, scatters the
mist and gives the promise of a glorious day. Spires and
pinnacles of burnished sUver smite the flawless blue of
heaven. The vapour clinging to their flanks and forests
melts imperceptibly into amber haze ; and here and there
broad stripes of dazzling sunlight turn the undulating
snowfields round our path to sheets of argent maU, thickly
studded with diamonds — crystals of the night. Every
leafless larch or alder by the stream-bed is encrusted with
sparkhng frost-jewels, and the torrents, hurrying to the
Rhine, chafe and foam against gigantic masses of grey-
green ice, lipped with fantastically curving snow-wreaths.
We are launched on the intoxication of a day-long sledge-
drive. Hour after hour passes with no change but the
change of postillions and horses, occasional halts at way
side inns, and the every-varying pageant of the frozen
landscape unrolled around us.
Ravines and gorges, to which the sunlight never pierces,
but walks with feet of fire along the chffs above, turning
those bristling pines against the sky-hne into burning
bushes, and sleeping for mUes upon white ridges whence
the avalanche descends. Slow climbings up warm slopes
between the red trunks of larches, where squirrels flirt
upon the russet needles shed through unstirred air.
Break-neck gaUopings down steep snow-covered hills,
through sleepy viUages, past waggons laden with enormous
tree-stems, under the awful icicles suspended hke shining
swords of Damocles from chffs 100 feet above our heads.
How so many tons of ice, apparently defying the law of
gravitation, keep their place upon those precipices through
217

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
a winter, increasing imperceptibly in volume, yet never
altering their shape, nor showing the least sign of moisture
at their extremities, has always been a mystery to me.
The phenomenon of the growth of ice cataracts from little
springs hidden in the crannies of black drizzling rocks
ought to be investigated by a competent scientific
authority. It is a standing wonder to the layman.
I have said that there is a kind of intoxication in such
a journey. But a better word for the effect would per
haps be hypnotism. You resent any disturbance or
alteration of the main conditions. Except to eat or drink
at intervals, you do not want to stop. You are annoyed
to think that it wiU ever end. And aU the whUe you go
on dreaming, meditating inconsecutively, smoking, ex
changing somnolent remarks with your companion or
your driver, turning over in your mind the work which
you have quitted or the work you have begun. This day
my thoughts were occupied with the national hero of
Graubiinden, Georg Jenatsch — a personage like some
one in the Book of Judges — the Samson who delivered
his oppressed tribesmen from the hands of their Amale-
kites, Moabites, and Philistines (French and Spanish and
Austrian armies), during the Thirty Years' War. Georg
Jenatsch accompanied me through the hypnotism of that
drive. We passed some of the scenes of his great exploits
— the frightful cliffs of the Schyn Pass, over which he
brought his Engadine troops one winter night by a forced
march, losing many heavy-armed men among their mur
derous ravines — the meadows of Valendas, where he
defeated tbe population of the Oberland in a pitched
battle at night, fighting up to the waist in snow and
staining it with blood — the castle of Riedberg, where he
murdered Pompey Planta with his own hands among the
tyrant's armed allies one Sunday morning — the church
218

A Page of My Life
of Scharans, where, to use his own words, he " Ued so
much," before he exchanged the pastor's gown and ruff
for casque of steel and harquebuss — the viUage of Thusis,
in which he held his Reign of Terror, torturing and be
heading the partisans of the Spanish Crown.1
It would be tedious to relate aU the detaUs of this
journey. FoUowing the Landwasser and the Albula, we
reached the Rhine at Thusis, and drove along its banks
to the point where the solitary castle of Rhazuns frowns
above melancholy precipices, crested with enormous
Scotch firs, surveying the gloomy eddies of the river.
Then we turned suddenly aside, and began to ascend the
valley of the Vorder-Rhein, among the weird earth-
chasms of Versamm. This is a really hideous place,
unlike anything but the sinister Baize, which break
away below Volterra. But here, 600 feet beneath the
road, the inaccessible Rhine chafes, throttled in its stony
gorge ; and the earth-slopes above, for ever crumbling
away and shooting stones down on the traveller, rise to
an equal height, dismal, forlorn, abandoned by the
beautifying veil of snow, which slides away from them in
avalanches ; rent and ploughed into ravines as by the
malice of some evil spirit. Day was weUnigh spent when
we emerged from these dangerous chasms into the woods
which close the entrance to the Safien Thai. The un
earthly ethereal lucidity which winter skies assume at
sunset in our mountains, shed soft lights of amber and
of rose upon the distant range of Todi, and bathed the
ridges of Calanda and the alps of Fhms in violet glory.
Our horses toUed slowly upward through the forest, whose
sombre trunks and sable plumage made the distant glow
1 I hope to write a book on Georg Jenatsch and his part in the
Thirty Years' War. The book still remains to be written, if life
permits. 219

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
more luminous— crunching with their hoofs a snow-path
hard as Carrara marble, and grinding the runners of the
sleigh into the track, which shrieked at every turning.
That is the only noise — this short, sharp shriek of the
frozen snow ; that, and the driver's whip, and the jingling
beUs upon the harness — you hear upon a sledge-drive.
And these noises have much to do with its hypnotism.
It was nearly dark when we left the wood, and broke
away again at a full gaUop for Ilanz. In a broad, golden
space of sky hung the young moon and the planet Venus,
lustrous as pearl Uluminated by some inner fire, and the
whole open valley lay stiU and white beneath the heavens.
Ilanz is a httle walled town — proud of its right to be
caUed Stadt and not Dorf, in spite of the paucity of its
inhabitants. It is almost whoUy composed of large
houses, buUt in the seventeenth century by noble famUies
with wealth acquired in foreign service. Their steep
gabled roofs, towers, and portals, charged with heraldic
emblazonry, cluster together in a labyrinth of aUeys.
Orchards stretch on every side around the town-walls,
which are pierced with old gateways, where the arms of
Schmid von Griineck, Salis, Planta, and Capoul shine out
in ancient carvings, richly-gflt and highly-coloured. The
sleepy httle town is picturesque in every detail, and
rapidly falhng into decay. From being a nest of swash
bucklers and captains of adventure, it has become the
centre of an agricultural district, where Swiss provincial
industry is languidly carried on by the descendants of
the aristocratic folk who buUt the brave old mansions.
One narrow and tortuous street runs through the town
from main gate to gate. On the farther side, among the
orchards, stands the house of our Swiss friends, under
whose hospitable roof I left my daughter. At the other
side is the principal inn, close to the covered wooden
220

A Page of My Life
bridge across the Rhine ; and here I took up my own
quarters. The street between offered a variety of
dangers during the night-hours. It was innocent of
lamps, and traffic had turned it into a glassy sheet of
treacherous, discoloured ice.
There was a concert and a baU in the hotel that even
ing. A singing-club for male voices, renowned through
out the Canton under its name of " Ligia Grischa,"
assembles once a year at Ilanz, gives a musical entertain
ment, sups in state, dances tUl dawn, and disperses in
the morning to homes among the hiUs. I always wished
to be present at one of this club's meetings, and had timed
my visit to Ilanz accordingly. I ought to say that the
old State of Graubiinden was composed of three Leagues,
the eldest of which was caUed, par excellence, the Grey
League ; and the folk who formed it for their freedom
in the first years of the fifteenth century had their hold
in Ilanz and the neighbourhood. They spoke then, and
the people still speak, a dialect of rustic Latin, which we
call Romanisch. In this dialect the Grey League is
Ligia Grischa. Hence the designation of the singing-
club. It was a splendid opportunity for seeing the natives
of the Bundner Oberland. Not only were the rank and
fashion of Ilanz present in fuU force, but men and women
from remote valleys hidden in the folds of the surround
ing hiUs — the hUls whose glaciers roU down the fountains
of the Rhine — had trooped into the town. The concert-
room was crammed to overflowing. Its low roof did but
httle justice to those masculine and ringing voices, which
throbbed and vibrated and beat against the waUs above
the densely-packed heads of the audience. What a
striking sea of faces and of forms ! I wished that my
good friend, Dr. John Beddoe, the illustrious ethnologist,
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
had been there to note them ; for the people reckon, I
beheve, among the purest aboriginals of Central Europe.
They are for the most part dark-complexioned, with very
black hair and eyebrows ; a long, narrow, rounded fore
head, curving upwards to a smaU oval skull ; deep-set
briUiant eyes, placed close together, blazing sometimes
like coals. The face is narrow, hke the forehead, with a
great length of nose and firmly-formed prominent jaws.
Set upon shoulders of athletic breadth and a sinewy
throat, this smaU head, with its packed and prominent
features, gives the impression of colossal and plastic
strength. In old men and women the type is wonder-
fuUy picturesque, when the wrinkles and experience of
a lifetime have ploughed their record deep. But, as is
usual with Swiss mountaineers, the young women are
deficient in comeliness, not to say in grace and beauty ;
and the young men, though more attractive, from their
hmber muscularity and free disdainful carriage, do them
selves no credit by their dress. They wear the coarsest,
Ul-made homespun. It is only when their superb forms
are stripped for athletic exercise that you discern in them
models fit for Donatello and Michel Angelo — those lovers
of long-hmbed, ponderous-shouldered, firmly-articulated,
large-handed specimens of humanity, with powerful necks
and smaU heads.
The faces of these young men make me pause and
wonder. They are less like human faces than masks.
Sometimes boldly carved, with ardent eyes, lips red as
blood, and a transparent olive skin, these faces yield no
index to the character within by any changes of expres
sion. The speech that comes from them is simple, well-
bred, unimaginative, destitute of ideas and emotions.
And yet I know that these same men are capable of the
most tenacious passions, the suddenest self-abandonment
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A Page of My Life
to overmastering impulse. It seems as though their
concentrated life in village homes had made them all of
one piece, which, when it breaks or yields, splits irre
trievably to fragments.
I wiU teU some stories which prove that the Grau
biinden peasants, though they look so stolid, have in
them the stuff of tragedy. There was a lad in a vaUey
caUed Schanfigg, not long ago, who loved and was be
trothed to a girl in the Hinter-Rheinthal, below Splugen.
She jUted him, having transferred her affections to
another ; and he went to take a formal fareweU of his
sweetheart in her home. Everything passed decorously ;
so much so, that the girl's brother put his horse into the
cart and drove the rejected lover with his own sister down
to Thusis. The three had reached that passage of the Via
Mala where the Rhine loses itself in a very deep, narrow
gorge. It is called the " Verlorene Loch," and is spanned
by a slender bridge thrown at right angles over the river.
Here, as they were spinning merrUy down-hiU, the lad
stood up in the cart, sprang to the parapet of the bridge,
and dashed himself at one bound into the grim death of
jagged rocks and churning waves below them. It was a
stroke of imaginative fancy to commit suicide^ for love
just at this spot. And now a second tale of desperate
passion. A rich man in the Prattigau had two chUdren,
a daughter and a son. The daughter wheedled him into
aUowing her to marry some peasant, who was poor and
an unequal match in social station. Then his son set his
affections upon a girl equaUy inehgible. The father
stormed ; but the youth was true to his plighted troth.
During a temporary absence of the son, his father con
trived to send the girl off to America with a round sum
of money. On his return, after hearing what had hap
pened, the lad said nothing, but went down to the Land-
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
quart water in the evening and drowned himself there.
And now a third tale. Last spring, in a village not three
hours distant from Davos, hved a young man who was
an orphan. He had inherited a considerable estate, and
expected more from two uncles. Life, could he have
managed it prudently, would probably have made him
the wealthiest farmer in the neighbourhood ; and he was,
to boot, a stalwart feUow on whom Nature had lavished
all her gifts of health and comehness. Unluckily, he
loved a girl of whom his uncles disapproved as the mate
for such a youth of consequence. One Saturday evening,
as the custom is here, he went to pay his addresses by
stealth to this maiden of his choice, and returning early
next morning, he was upbraided by his interfering uncles.
I do not know what he replied, but certainly he made
no scene to speak of. When the uncles left him, he un
hooked his gun from the wooden panelling of the house-
room, strolled out alone into the copse hard by, and put
a bullet through his brain.
That is the sort of things of which these youngsters,
with their heavy gait and scornful carriage, are capable
of doing. The masks they wear for faces are no index to
the life that throbs within.
Well, I am digressing from Ilanz and the Ligia Grischa.
After the concert there came the banquet, and after the
banquet came the ball. About three in the morning,
having smoked many pipes with friends in homespun, I
retired to my weU-earned rest and slept soundly, although
the whole inn was resonant with fifes and violins, and
stamping, shouting Burschen. You should have seen
the last dregs of the orgy, the petits creves of Ilanz, when
I came down to breakfast at eight. Some of them were
still dancing.
Next day we took a sleigh and drove up the vaUey of
224

THE RHINE AT LANDQUART.

A Page of My Life
Lungnez. Such a silent snow-scene under the steady
flooding sunshine ! The track between wood and preci
pice was just broad enough for our runners tiU we came
close to Villa. There the valley expands, yielding a vast
prospect over the mountain-passes which lead to Splugen
and to Olivone — a wilderness of craggy peaks and biUowy
snowfields, aU smoothed and softened with clear sun
shine and blue shadows. No one can paint, no words can
describe, that landscape. It must be seen ; and then it
wUl never be forgotten. A baronial family, De Mont,
were lords of Villa in old days, and now they keep an inn
there in one of their ancestral houses. Portraits of
generals and ladies look down upon the casual guest,
among emblazoned scutcheons with famous quarterings
— Schauenstein, Castelberg, Toggenburg — discernible by
specialists who (like myself) love to trace a nation's
history in its heraldries. Photographs of more recent
De Monts, abroad in the world, occupy a modest place
beneath these canvases upon the planks of cembra-pine
which form the paneUing. It is by no means uncommon
in this country to find the homes of people whose an
cestors were counts or barons of the Empire, nobles of
Spain and France, and whose descendants could bear such
titles if they chose, turned into hostelries. I sometimes
wonder what they think of American and English tourists.
When I make inquiries about their former state, and show
some knowledge of their famUy, it is always appreciated
in the grave, dignified way these people of Graubiinden
have with them.
The chief attraction of ViUa — letting alone the annals
of Lungnez, of which I have not here the time to speak —
is an old church, at Pleif , buUt on a buttress of the hiUs
far up above the torrent. It occupies a station which
would be singular in any land ; and it commands a view
225 p

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
of peaks, passes, snow-fields, and precipices, which even
in Switzerland is rare. Once it was the only church in
the vast upland region it surveys. The tolhng of its bell
brought stalwart Catholics from far and near, trooping
under arms to join their forces with the men of Ilanz,
Trons, and Dissentis, and then to march with flying flags
on Chur. That was in the times when Graubiinden
struggled in religious strife between Catholics and Pro
testants, partisans of the French and Spanish sides. The
building is large and of venerable antiquity. On its waUs
hangs a huge oil painting — surprising to find in such a
place — a picture, clearly by some Venetian artist, of the
battle at Lepanto ; just such a canvas as one sees in the
Ducal Palace on the Lagoons. The history of this pic
ture, and why it came to Pleif, seems to be forgotten ;
but we know that the Grisons in the sixteenth century
were stout allies and servants of St. Mark's.
It was not the inside of the church at Pleif which at
tracted my notice, but the graveyard round it, irregularly
shaped to suit the rocky station, girt with fern-plumed
walls, within which were planted ancient ash-trees. A
circuit of gnarled, bent, twisted, broken ash-trees. In
Westmoreland or Yorkshire they would not have had the
same significance ; but here, where all deciduous trees are
scarce, where the very pine woods have been swept away
by avalanches and the violence of armies, each massive
bole told a pecuhar story. I thought of the young
men whose athletic forms and faces like masks impressed
my fancy, and something breathing from the leafless ashes
spoke to me about them. Here was the source of their
life's poetry ; a poetry coUected from deep daily com
munings with Nature in her shyest, most impressive
moods ; a poetry infused into their sense unconsciously ;
brought to a point and carried into some supreme emotion
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A Page of My Life
by meetings with a girl in such a place as this — the hours
of summer twUight, when the ash-trees are laden with
leaves, and the mountains shrink away before the rising
moon, and the torrent clamours in the gorge below, and
the vast divine world expresses its meaning in one simple
ineffaceable word of love. I seemed, as I sat upon the
wall there in the snowy, sunny silence, to understand a
little more about the force of passion and the external
impassiveness of this folk, whom I dearly love. I felt
why those three lads of whom I spoke had thrown their
lives away for an emotion, breaking to pieces because the
mainspring of their life was broken — that which moved
them, for which they had grown up to manhood, through
which the dominant influences of Nature on their sensitive
humanity had become manifest in an outburst of irre
versible passion. Then I remembered how a friend of
mine from Trins talked to me once about the first thoughts
of love evoked in him, just in a place hke this. It was
on the top of a hiU called Canaschal, where there is a
ruined castle and a prospect over both the valleys of the
Rhine, and the blending of that mighty river's fountains
as it flows towards Chur. He was a boy of fifteen, my
friend, when he saw the simple thing of which he told me
at the age of twenty-three. A pair of lovers were seated
on the cliffs of Canaschal — the lad and the girl both known
to him — and he was lying in the bushes. It was the sight
of their kisses which informed him what love was ; and
the way in which my carpenter friend spoke of the ex
perience seven years afterwards, made me conceive how
the sublime scenery and sohtudes of these mountains may
enter into the soul of Burschen who have nothing to show
the world but masks for faces.
I give this here for what it is worth. We have heard
much of the Swiss in foreign service dying of home-
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
sickness at the sound of the " Ranz des Vaches." We
have also learned the proverb, " Pas d'argent, pas de
Suisse." I think that the education of young men in
these Siren mountains — far more Siren than the mer
maids of Sorrento or Baiae, to any one who once has felt
the spirit of the Alps — combined with their poverty, their
need of making money to set up house with, accounts for
the peculiar impression which they make on town-bred
foreigners, and for their otherwise inexphcable habit of
wedding the uncomely daughters of the land.
I wUl not linger over our drive back from Ilanz. One
sleigh- journey is hke another, except for the places one
stops at, the postillions one talks to, the old wooden
rooms one drinks in, the friends one visits on the way,
and the varieties of the grand scenery one sweeps through.
It has been my constant habit for many years to do
a considerable amount of hard study while traveUing.
It would be difficult to say how many heavy German and
Italian books on history, biography, and criticism, how
many volumes of Greek poets, and what a library of
French and Enghsh authors, have been slowly perused
by me in railway stations, trains, steamers, wayside inns,
and Alpine chalets. I enjoy nothing more than to sit in a
bar-room among peasants, carters, and grooms, smoking,
with a glass of wine beside me, and a stiff work on one of
the subjects I am bound to get up. The contrast between
the surroundings and the study adds zest to the latter ;
and when I am tired of reading, I can lay my book down
and chat with folk whom I have been half-consciously
observing. On this short trip I had taken a remarkable essay,
entitled La Critique scientifique, by a young and promis
ing French author — now, alas ! no more — M. Emile
Hennequin. The writer tries to establish a new method
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A Page of My Life
of criticism upon a scientific basis, distinguished from the
sesthetical and literary methods. He does not aim at
appreciating the merit of works of art, or of the means
employed in their production, or of the work itself in its
essence, but always in its relations. He regards art as
the index to the psychological characteristics of those
who produce it, and of those whom it interests and
attracts. His method of criticism may be defined as
the science of the work of art regarded as a sign. The
development of these ideas in a lengthy and patient
analytical investigation taxes the reader's attention pretty
severely ; for some of Hennequin's views are decidedly
audacious, and require to be examined with caution.
Well, I had reached Chur on my homeward route, and
was spending the evening in the little hotel I frequent
there. It has a long, low, narrow room, with five latticed
windows and an old stove of green tiles for its Stube, or
place of public resort. Here I went to smoke and read
M. Hennequin's book on criticism. Three diligence con
ductors and a postiUion, excellent people and my very
good friends, were in a corner by the stove, playing a
game of Yass ; and after exchanging the usual questions
with these acquaintances, I took my seat near them and
began to study. About ten o'clock they left, and I was
alone. I had reached the point in Hennequin's exposi
tion of what he somewhat awkwardly termed esthopsych-
ologie, which is concerned with the theory of national
literature taken as a sign of national character. This
absorbed my attention, and nearly an hour must have
passed when I was suddenly disturbed by the noisy
entrance of seven hulking fellows in heavy greatcoats,
with, strange to say, eight bright green crowns upon their
heads instead of hats. I write eight advisedly, for one
of them wore two wreaths, of oak and bay respectively.
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
In a moment I perceived that a gymnastic performance,
or Tumfest, must have taken place ; for I recognised two
of the men, whom I knew to be famous athletes. They
came up, shook hands, introduced to me their comrades,
and invited me to drink a double-litre of Valtelline wine.
I accepted with alacrity, shut up my treatise upon
criticism, and sat down to the long central table. Mean
while the gymnasts had thrown off their greatcoats, and
stood displayed in a costume not very far removed from
nudity. They had gained their crowns, they told me,
that evening at an extraordinary meeting of the associ
ated Turnvereins, or gymnastic clubs of the Canton. It
was the oddest thing in the world to sit smoking in a
dimly-lighted, panelled tap-room with seven such com
panions. They were all of them strapping bachelors
between twenty and twenty-five years of age ; colossaUy
broad in the chest and shoulders, tight in the reins, set
massively upon huge thighs and swelling calves ; wrestlers,
boxers, stone-lifters, and quoit-throwers. Their short
bull-throats supported smaU heads, closely clipped, with
bruised ears and great big-featured faces, over which the
wreaths of bright green artificial foliage bristled. I
have said that the most striking thing, to my mind, about
the majority of young faces in Graubiinden is that they
resemble masks, upon which character and experience
have delved no lines, and which stare out in stolid in
scrutability. These men illustrated the observation.
Two of them had masks of wax, smooth, freshly-coloured,
joining on to dark, cropped hair. The masks of three
seemed to be moulded out of grey putty, which had
hardened without cracking. The sixth mask was of
sculptured sandstone, and the seventh of exquisitely
chiseUed alabaster. I seemed to be sitting in a dream
among vitalised statues of the later emperors, executed
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A Page of My Life
in the decadence of art, with no grasp on individual
character, but with a certain reminiscence of the grand
style of portraiture. Commodus, CaracaUa, Alexander
Severus, the three Gordians, and Pertinax might have
been drinking there beside me in the pothouse. The
attitudes assumed by these big fellows, stripped to their
sleeveless jerseys and tight-fitting flannel breeches,
strengthened the Ulusion. I felt as though we were
waiting there for slaves, who should anoint their hair
with unguents, gild their wreaths, enwrap them in the
paludament, and attend them to receive the shouts of
" Ave Imperator " from a band of gladiators or the
legionaries of the Gallic army. When they rose to seek
another tavern I turned, half-asleep, into my bed. There
the anarchy of dreams continued that impression of
resuscitated statues — vivified effigies of emperors, who
long ago perished by the dagger or in battle, and whose
lineaments the craft of a declining civilisation has pre
served for us in forms which caricature the grace and
strength of classic sculpture.
Next day I found myself at Davos-Platz, beginning my
work again upon accumulated proofs of Gozzi and the
impossible problem of style. J. A. S.

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BACCHUS IN GRAUBTJNDEN

Long residence in this Canton made me famUiar with all
sorts of ValteUine wine : with rough Inferno, generous
Forzato, delicate SasseUa, harsher Montagner, the rasp
berry flavour of GrumeUo, the sharp invigorating twang
of Villa. The colour, ranging from garnet to almandine
or ruby, told me the age and quahty of the vintage ; and
I had learned many secrets about the proper way of
handling it. I furthermore arrived at the conclusion,
tvhich is certainly a just one, that good Valtelline can only
be tasted at a very considerable height above the sea ;
for this wine matures slowly in the cold of a mountain
climate, and acquires a bouquet here unknown at lower
levels. In a word, it amused my leisure to make or
think myself a connoisseur. My literary taste was
tickled by the praise bestowed in the Augustan age on
Rhaetic grapes by Virgil —
" Et quo te carmine dicam
Ehsetica ? nee cellis ideo contende ITalernis."
I piqued myself on thinking that, could the poet but
have drunk one bottle of old GrumeUo at Samaden —
where Stilicho, by the way, in his famous recruiting
expedition, described so eloquently by the poet Claudian,
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Bacchus in Graubiinden
may perhaps have drunk it — he would have been less
chary in his panegyric. For the point of inferiority on
which he seems to insist — namely, that ValteUine wine
does not ripen well in the cellar — is only proper to this
vintage in Italian climate. Here it attains its maximum
of excellence after it has been kept a quarter of a century
in wood ; and certainly no Falernian manufactured at
the present day can compete with it.
Such meditations led my fancy on the path of history.
Is there truth, then, in the dim tradition that this moun
tain-land was colonized by Etruscans ? Is Ras the root
of Rhsetia ? The Etruscans were accomplished wine
growers, we know. It was their Montepulciano which
drew the Gauls to Rome, if Livy can be trusted. Perhaps
they first planted the vine in ValteUine. Perhaps its
superior culture in that district may be due to ancient
use surviving in a secluded Alpine valley. One thing is
certain, that the peasants of Sondrio and Tirano under
stand viticulture better than the Italians of Lombardy.
Then my thoughts ran on to the period of modern
history, when the Grisons seized the Valtelline in lieu of
war-pay from the Dukes of Milan. For some three cen
turies they held it as a subject province. From the
Rathhaus at Davos or Chur they sent their nobles — -Von
Salis and Buol, Planta and Sprecher von Bernegg — across
the hiUs as governors or podestas to Poschiavo, Sondrio,
Tirano, and Morbegno. In those old days the Valtelline
wines came duly every winter over snow-deep passes to
fill the cellars of the Signori Grigioni. That quaint
traveUer, Tom Coryat, in his so-called Crudities, notes the
custom early in the seventeenth century. And as that
custom then obtained, it stUl subsists with little altera
tion. The wine-carriers — Wein-fiihrer, as they are called
— first scaled the Bernina Pass, halting then as now, per-
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
haps, at Poschiavo and Pontresina. Afterwards, in order
to reach Davos, the pass of the Scaletta rose before them
— a wUderness of untracked snow-drifts. The country
folk still point to narrow, hght hand-sledges, on which
the casks were charged before the last pitch of the pass.
Some wine came, no doubt, on pack-saddles. A meadow
in front of the Dischma Thai, where the pass ends, stUl
bears the name of the Ross-Weid, or horse-pasture. It
was here that the beasts of burden used for this wine
service rested after their long labours. In favourable
weather the whole journey from Tirano would have
occupied at least four days, with scanty halts at night.
The Valtelline slipped from the hands of the Grisons
early in this century. It is rumoured that one of the
Von Sal is family negotiated matters with Napoleon more
for his private benefit than for the interests of the State.
However this may have been, when the Graubiinden
became a Swiss Canton, after four centuries of sovereign
independence, the whole Valtelline passed to Austria,
and so eventually to Italy. According to modern and
just notions of nationality this was right. In their period
of power the Grisons masters had treated their Italian
dependencies with harshness. The ValteUine is an Itahan
vaUey, connected with the rest of the peninsula by ties
of race and language. It is, moreover, geographicaUy
linked to Italy by the great stream of the Adda, which
takes its rise upon the Stelvio, and after passing through
the Lake of Como, swells the volume of the Po.
But, though politicaUy severed from the Valtelline,
the Engadiners and Davosers have not dropped their old
habit of importing its best produce. What they formerly
levied as masters they now acquire by purchase. The
Italian revenue derives a large profit from the frontier
dues paid at the gate between Tirano and Poschiavo on
234

Bacchus in Graubiinden
the Bernina road. Much of the same wine enters Switzer
land by another route, travelhng from Sondrio to Chia
venna and across the Splugen. But until quite recently,
the wine itself could scarcely be found outside the Canton.
It was indeed quoted upon Lombard wine hsts. Yet no
one drank it ; and when I tasted it at Milan I found it
quite unrecognisable. The fact seems to be that the
Graubiindeners alone know how to deal with it ; and,
as I have hinted, the wine requires a mountain climate
for its fuU development.

II
The district where the wine of ValteUina is grown
extends, roughly speaking, from Tirano to Morbegno,
a distance of some fifty-four mUes. The best sorts come
from the middle of this region. High up in the valley
soil and chmate are alike less favourable. Low down a
coarser, earthier quality springs from fat land where the
vaUey broadens. The northern hUlsides to a very con
siderable height above the river are covered with vine
yards. The southern slopes on the left bank of the Adda,
lying more in shade, yield but little. Inferno, GrumeUo,
and Perla di SasseUa are the names of famous vineyards.
SasseUa is the general name for a large tract. Buying
an Inferno, GrumeUo, or Perla di SasseUa wine, it would
be absurd to suppose that one obtained it precisely from
the eponymous estate. But as each of these vineyards
yields a marked quahty of wine, which is taken as stan
dard-giving, the produce of the whole district may be
broadly classified as approaching more or less nearly to
one of these accepted types. The Inferno, GrumeUo, and
Perla di SasseUa of commerce are, therefore, three sorts
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
of good Valtelline, ticketed with famous names to indicate
certain differences of quality. Montagner, as the name
implies, is a somewhat hghter wine, grown higher up in
the hUl vineyards. And of this class there are many
species, some approximating to SasseUa in delicacy of
flavour, others approaching the tart lightness of the VUla
vintage. This last takes its title from a viUage in the neigh
bourhood of Tirano, where a table wine is chiefly grown.
Forzato is the strongest, dearest, longest-lived of this
whole family of wines. It is manufactured chiefly at
Tirano ; and, as wiU be understood from its name, does
not profess to belong to any one of the famous locahties.
Forzato, or Sforzato, forced or enforced, is in fact a wine
which has undergone a more artificial process. In Ger
man the people caU it Stroh-wein, which also points to the
method of its preparation. The finest grapes are selected
and dried in the sun (hence the Stroh) for a period of eight
or nine weeks. When they have almost become raisins,
they are pressed. The must is heavily charged with
sugar, and ferments powerfully. Wine thus made re
quires several years to ripen. Sweet at first, it takes at
last a very fine quality and flavour, and is rough, almost
acid, on the tongue. Its colour, too, turns from a deep
rich crimson to the tone of tawny port, which indeed it
much resembles.
Old Forzato which has been long in cask, and then
perhaps three years in bottle, wiU fetch at least 6 francs,
or may rise to even 10 francs a flask. The best SasseUa
rarely reaches more than 5 francs. Good Montagner
and GrumeUo can be had perhaps for 4 francs ; and
Inferno of a special quality for 6 francs. Thus the
average price of old Valtelline wine may be taken as
5 francs a bottle. These, I should observe, are hotel prices.
Valtelline wines bought in the wood vary, of course,
236

Bacchus in Graubunden
according to their age and year of vintage. I have found
that from 2.50 francs to 3.50 francs per litre is a fair
price for sorts fit to bottle. The new wine of 1881 sold
in the following winter at prices varying from 1.05 francs
to 1.80 francs per litre.
It is customary for the Graubunden wine merchants
to buy up the whole produce of a vineyard from the
peasants at the end of the vintage. They go in person,
or depute their agents, to inspect the wine, make their
bargains, and seal the ceUars where the wine is stored.
Then, when the snow has faUen, their own horses, with
sleighs and trusted servants, go across the passes to bring
it home. GeneraUy they have some local man of con
fidence at Tirano, the starting-point for the homeward
journey, who takes the casks up to that place and sees
them duly charged. Merchants of old standing maintain
relations with the same peasants, taking their wine
regularly ; so that from Lorenz Gredig at Pontresina or
Andreas Gredig at Davos-Dorfli, from Fanconi at Samaden
or from Giacomi at Chiavenna, special qualities of wine,
the produce of certain vineyards, are to be obtained. Up
to the present time this wine-trade has been conducted
with simplicity and honesty by both the dealers and the
growers. One chief merit of ValteUine wine is that it
is pure. How long so desirable a state of things will
survive the slow but steady development of an export
business may be questioned.

Ill
With so much practical and theoretical interest in the
produce of the ValteUine to stimulate my curiosity, I
determined to visit the district at the season when the
237

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
wine was leaving it. It was the winter of 1881-82, a
winter of unparaUeled beauty in the high Alps. Day
succeeded day without a cloud. Night followed night
with steady stars, gliding across clear mountain ranges
and forests of dark pines unstirred by wind. I
could not hope for a more prosperous season ; and
indeed I made such use of it, that between the months
of January and March I crossed six passes of the Alps
in open sleighs — the Fluela, Bernina, Splugen, Julier,
Maloja, and Albula — with less difficulty and discomfort
in mid-winter than the traveUer may often find on them
in June.
At the end of January my friend Christian and I left
Davos long before the sun was up, and ascended for four
hours through the interminable snow-drifts of the Fluela
in a cold grey shadow. The sun's light seemed to elude
us. It ran along the ravine through which we toiled ;
dipped down to touch the topmost pines above our
heads ; rested in golden calm upon the Schiahorn at our
back ; capriciously played here and there across the
Weisshorn on our left, and made the precipices of the
Schwartzhorn ghtter on our right. But athwart our path
it never fell until we reached the very summit of the pass.
Then we passed quietly into the full glory of the winter
morning — a tranquil flood of sunbeams pouring through
air of crystalline purity, frozen and motionless. White
peaks and dark brown rocks soared up, cutting a sky of
almost purple blueness. A stillness that might be felt
brooded over the whole world ; but in that stUlness there
was nothing sad, no suggestion of suspended vitahty.
It was the stillness rather of untroubled health, of strength
omnipotent but unexerted.
From the Hospiz of the Fluela the track plunges at
one bound into the valley of the Inn, foUowing a narrow
238

THE SCHIAHORN.

t
¦ ¦

Bacchus in Graubunden
cornice carved from the smooth bank of snow, and hung,
without break or barrier, a thousand feet or more above
the torrent. The summer road is lost in snow-drifts.
The galleries built as a protection from avalanches, which
sweep in rivers from those grim, bare fells above, are
blocked with snow. Their useless arches yawn, as we
glide over or outside them, by paths which instinct in
our horse and driver traces. As a fly may creep along a
house-roof, slanting downwards we descend. One whisk
from the swinged tail of an avalanche would hurl us, like
a fly, into the ruin of the gaping gorge. But this season
little snow has fallen on the higher hiUs ; and what still
lies there is hard frozen. Therefore we have no fear as
we whirl fast and faster from the snow-fields into the black
forests of gnarled cembras and wind-wearied pines. Then
Siiss is reached, where the Inn hurries its shaUow waters,
clogged with ice-floes, through a sleepy hamlet. The
stream is pure and green, for the fountains of the glaciers
are locked by winter frosts, and only clear rills from
perennial sources swell its tide. At Siiss we lost the sun,
and toUed in garish gloom and sUence, nipped by the ever-
deepening cold of evening, upwards for four hours to
Samaden. The next day was spent in visiting the winter colony
at San Moritz, where the Kulm Hotel, tenanted by some
twenty guests, presented in its vastness the appearance
of a country-house. One of the prettiest spots in the
world is the ice-rink, fashioned by the skiU of Herr Caspar
Badrutt on a high raised terrace, commanding the valley
of the Inn and the ponderous bulwarks of Bernina. The
silhouettes of skaters, defined agamst that landscape of
pure white, passed to and fro beneath a cloudless sky.
Ladies sat and worked or read on seats upon the ice.
Not a breath of wind was astir, and warm beneficent sun-
239

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
hght flooded the immeasurable air. Only, as the day
declined, some iridescent films overspread the west ; and
just above Maloja the apparition of a mock sun — a well-
defined circle of opaline light, broken at regular intervals
by four globes — seemed to portend a change of weather.
This forecast fortunately proved delusive. We drove
back to Samaden across the silent snow, enjoying those
dehcate tints of rose and violet and saffron which shed
enchantment for one hour over the white monotony of
Alpine winter.
At half-past eight next morning the sun was rising
from behind Pitz Languard as we crossed the Inn and
drove through Pontresina in the glorious light, with all
its huge hotels quite empty, and none but a few country
folk abroad. Those who only know the Engadine in
summer have httle conception of its beauty. Winter
softens the hard detaUs of bare rock, and rounds the
melancholy grassless mountain flanks, suspending icicles
to every ledge and spangling the curved surfaces of snow
with crystals. The landscape gains in purity, and, what
sounds unbehevable, in tenderness. Nor does it lose in
grandeur. Looking up the valley of the Morteratsch that
morning, the glaciers were distinguishable in hues of green
and sapphire through their veil of snow ; and the highest
peaks soared in a transparency of amethystine hght
beneath a blue sky traced with filaments of windy cloud.
Some storm must have disturbed the atmosphere in
Italy, for fan-shaped mists frothed out around the sun,
and curled themselves above the mountains in fine
feathery wreaths, melting imperceptibly into air, untU,
when we had risen above the cembras, the sky was one
deep solid blue.
All that upland wilderness is lovelier now than in the
summer ; and on the morning of which I write, the air
240

Bacchus in Graubunden
itself was far more summery than I have ever known it
in the Engadine in August. We could scarcely bear to
place our hands upon the woodwork of the sleigh because
of the sun's fierce heat. And yet the atmosphere was
crystaUine with windless frost. As though to increase
the strangeness of these contrasts, the pavement of beaten
snow was stained with red drops spUt from wine-casks
which pass over it.
The chief feature of the Bernina — what makes it a
dreary pass enough in summer, but infinitely beautiful
in winter — is its breadth ; iUimitable undulations of
snow-drifts ; immensity of open sky ; unbroken lines of
white, descending in smooth curves from glittering ice-
peaks. A glacier hangs in air above the frozen lakes, with all
its green-blue ice-cliffs glistening in intensest light. Pitz
Palii shoots aloft like sculptured marble, delicately veined
with soft aerial shadows of translucent blue. At the
summit of the pass all Italy seems to burst upon the eyes
in those steep serried ranges, with their craggy crests,
violet-hued in noonday sunshine, as though a bloom of
plum or grape had been shed over them, enamelling their
jagged precipices. The top of the Bernina is not always
thus in winter. It has a bad reputation for the fury of
invading storms, when falling snow hurtles together with
snow scooped from the drifts in eddies, and the weltering
white sea shifts at the will of whirlwinds. The Hospice
then may be tenanted for days together by weather
bound wayfarers ; and a line drawn close beneath its
roof shows how two years ago the whole building was
buried in one snow-shroud. This morning we lounged
about the door, while our horses rested and postillions
and carters pledged one another in cups of new Veltliner.
The road takes an awful and sudden dive downwards,
241 Q

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
quite irrespective of the carefuUy engineered post-track.
At this season the path is badly broken into ruts and
chasms by the wine traffic. In some places it was in
dubitably perilous : a narrow ledge of mere ice skirting
thinly-clad hard-frozen banks of snow, which feU pre
cipitately sideways for hundreds of sheer feet. We did
not slip over this parapet, though we were often within
an inch of doing so. Had our horse stumbled, it is not
probable that I should have been writing this.
When we came to the galleries which defend the road
from avalanches, we saw ahead of us a train of over forty
sledges ascending, aU charged with ValteUine wine. Our
postUhons drew up at the inner side of the gaUery, between
massive columns of the purest ice dependent from the
rough-hewn roof and walls of rock. A sort of open
loggia on the farther side framed vignettes of the Valtel
line mountains in their hard cerulean shadows and keen
sunhght. Between us and the view defiled the wine-
sledges ; and as each went by, the men made us drink
out of their trinketti. These are oblong, hexagonal
wooden kegs, holding about fourteen litres, which the
carter fiUs with wine before he leaves the Valtelline, to
cheer him on the homeward journey. You raise it in
both hands, and when the bung has been removed, allow
the liquor to flow stream-wise down your throat. It was
a most extraordinary Bacchic procession — a pomp which,
though undreamed of on the banks of the Ilissus, pro
claimed the deity of Dionysos in authentic fashion.
Struggling horses, grappling at the ice-bound floor with
sharp-spiked shoes ; huge, hoarse drivers, some clad in
sheepskins from Italian vaUeys, some brown as bears in
rough Graubunden homespun ; casks, dropping their
spilth of red wine on the snow ; greetings, embracings ;
patois of Bergamo, Romansch, and German roaring
242

WINTER SUNRISE ON CRESTA, CELERINA,
AND SAMADEN.

f'*w

Bacchus in Graubunden
around the low-browed vaults and tingling ice piUars ;
pourings forth of hbations of the new strong ValteUine
on breasts and beards ; — the whole made up a scene of
stalwart joUity and manful labour such as I have nowhere
else in such wild circumstances witnessed. Many
Davosers were there, the men of Andreas Gredig, Valar,
and so forth ; and aU of these, on greeting Christian,
forced us to drain a Schluck from their unmanageable
cruses. Then on they went, crying, creaking, strugghng,
straining through the corridor, which echoed deafeningly,
the gleaming crystals of those hard Italian mountains in
their winter raiment building a background of stiU
beauty to the savage Bacchanahan riot of the team.
How little visitors who drink Valtelline wine at San
Moritz or Davos reflect by what strange ways it reaches
them. A sledge can scarcely be laden with more than
one cask of 300 litres on the ascent ; and this cask, accord
ing to the state of the road, has many times to be shifted
from wheels to runners and back again before the journey
is accomplished. One carter will take charge of two
horses, and consequently of two sledges and two casks,
driving them both by voice and gesture rather than by
rein. When they leave the Valtelline, the carters en
deavour, as far as possible, to take the pass in gangs, lest
bad weather or an accident upon the road should over
take them singly. At night they hardly rest three hours,
and rarely think of sleeping, but spend the time in drink
ing and conversation. The horses are fed and littered ;
but for them, too, the night-halt is httle better than a
baiting-time. In fair weather the passage of the moun
tain is not difficult, though tiring. But woe to men and
beasts alike if they encounter storms ! Not a few perish
in the passes ; and it frequently happens that their only
chance is to unyoke the horses and leave the sledges in
243 Q 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
a snow-wreath, seeking for themselves such shelter as
may possibly be gained, frost-bitten, after hours of
batthng with impermeable drifts. The wine is frozen
into one solid mass of rosy ice before it reaches Pon
tresina. This does not hurt the young vintage, but it
is highly injurious to wine of some years' standing. The
perils of the journey are aggravated by the savage temper
of r the drivers. Jealousies between the natives of rival
districts spring up ; and there are men ahve who have
fought the whole way down from Fluela Hospice to
Davos-Platz with knives and stones, hammers and
hatchets, wooden staves and splintered cart-wheels,
staining the snow with blood, and bringing broken pates,
bruised hmbs, and senseless comrades home to their
women to be tended.
Bacchus Alpinus shepherded his train away from us to
northward, and we passed forth into noonday from the
gaUery. It then seemed clear that both conductor and
postillion were sufficiently merry. The plunge they took
us down those frozen parapets, with shriek and jauchzen
and cracked whips, was more than ever dangerous. Yet
we reached La Rosa safely. This is a lovely solitary spot,
beside a rushing stream, among grey granite boulders
grown with spruce and rhododendron : a veritable rose
of Sharon blooming in the desert. The wastes of the
Bernina stretch above, and round about are leaguered
some of the most forbidding sharp-toothed peaks I ever
saw. Onwards, across the sUent snow, we glided in im
mitigable sunshine, through opening vaUeys and pine-
woods, past the robber-huts of PisciadeUa, until at even-
faU we rested in the roadside inn at Poschiavo.

244

Bacchus in Graubunden

IV
The snow-path ended at Poschiavo ; and when, as usual,
we started on our journey next day at sunrise, it was in a
carriage upon wheels. Yet even here we were in full mid
winter. Beyond Le Prese the lake presented one sheet of
smooth black ice, reflecting every peak and chasm of the
mountains, and showing the rocks and water-weeds in
the clear green depths below. The glittering floor
stretched away for acres of untenanted expanse, with not
a skater to explore those dark mysterious coves, or strike
across the slanting sunhght poured from clefts in the
impendent hills. Inshore the substance of the ice sparkled
here and there with iridescence hke the plumelets of a
butterfly's wing under the microscope, wherever light
happened to catch the jagged or oblique flaws that veined
its solid crystal.
From the lake the road descends suddenly for a con
siderable distance through a narrow gorge, foUowing a
torrent which rushes among granite boulders. Chestnut
trees begin to replace the pines. The sunnier terraces are
planted with tobacco, and at a lower level vines appear
at intervals in patches. One comes at length to a great
red gate across the road, which separates Switzerland
from Italy, and where the export dues on wines are paid.
The Italian custom-house is romanticaUy perched above
the torrent. Two courteous and elegant finanzieri, mere
boys, were sitting wrapped in their mUitary cloaks and
reading novels in the sun as we drove up. Though they
made some pretence of examining the luggage, they ex
cused themselves with sweet smUes and apologetic eyes —
it was a disagreeable duty !
A short time brought us to the first vUlage in the Val-
245

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
telline, where the road bifurcates northward to Bormio and
the Stelvio Pass, southward to Sondrio and Lombardy.
It is a little hamlet, known by the name of La Madonna di
Tirano, having grown up round a pilgrimage church of great
beauty, with tall Lombard beU-tower, pierced with many
tiers of pilastered windows, ending in a whimsical spire,
and dominating a fantastic cupola-buUding of the earlier
Renaissance. Taken altogether, this is a charming bit of
architecture, picturesquely set beneath the granite snow-
peaks of the Valtelline. The church, they say, was
raised at Madonna's own command to stay the tide of
heresy descending from the Engadine ; and in the year
1620, the bronze statue of St. Michael, which still spreads
wide its wings above the cupola, looked down upon the
massacre of 600 Protestants and foreigners, commanded
by the patriot Jacopo Robustelli.
From Madonna the road leads up the valley through a
narrow avenue of poplar trees to the town of Tirano. We
were now in the district where Forzato is made, and every
vineyard had a name and history. In Tirano we betook
ourselves to the house of an old acquaintance of the Buol
family, Bernardo da Campo, or, as the Graubundeners
call him, Bernard Campbell. We found him at dinner
with his son and grandchildren in a vast, dark, bare
Italian chamber. It would be difficult to find a more
typical old Scotchman of the Lowlands than he looked,
with his clean close-shaven face, bright brown eyes, and
snow-white hair escaping from a broad-brimmed hat.
He might have sat to a painter for some Covenanter's
portrait, except that there was nothing dour about him,
or^ for an illustration to Burns's " Cotter's Saturday
Night." The air of probity and canniness, combined with
a twinkle of dry humour, was completely Scotch ; and
when he tapped his snuff-box, telling stories of old days,
246

Bacchus in Graubunden
I could not refrain from asking him about his pedigree.
It should be said that there is a considerable family of
CampeUs or Campbells in the Graubiinden, who are fabled
to deduce their stock from a Scotch Protestant of Zwin-
gli's time ; and this made it irresistible to imagine that in
our friend Bernardo I had chanced upon a notable speci
men of atavism. All he knew, however, was that his first
ancestor had been a foreigner, who came across the moun
tains to Tirano two centuries ago.1
This old gentleman is a considerable wine-dealer. He
sent us with his son, Giacomo, on a long journey under
ground through his cellars, where we tasted several sorts
of Valtelline, especiaUy the new Forzato, made a few weeks
since, which singularly combines sweetness with strength,
and both with a slight effervescence. It is certainly the
sort of wine wherewith to tempt a Polyphemus, and not
unapt to turn a giant's head.
Leaving Tirano, and one more passing through the
poplars by Madonna, we descended the valley aU along
the vineyards of Villa and the vast district of SasseUa.
Here and there, at wayside inns, we stopped to drink a
glass of some particular vintage ; and everywhere it
seemed as though god Bacchus were at home. The
whole vaUey on the right side of the Adda is one gigantic
vineyard, chmbing the hiUs in tiers and terraces, which
justify its Italian epithet of Teatro di Bacco. The rock is
a greyish granite, assuming sullen brown and orange tints
where exposed to sun and weather. The vines are grown
on stakes, not trellised over trees or carried across
boulders, as is the fashion at Chiavenna or Terlan. Yet
1 The Grisons surname Campell may derive from the Romansch
Campo Bello. The founder of the house was one Kasper Campell,
who in the first half of the sixteenth century preached the Reformed
religion in the Engadine. 247

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
every advantage of the mountain is adroitly used ; nooks
and crannies being especiaUy preferred, where the sun's
rays are deflected from hanging cliffs. The soil seems
deep, and is of a dull yeUow tone. When the vines end.
brushwood takes up the growth, which expires at last in
crag and snow. Some alps and chalets, dimly traced
against the sky, are evidences that a pastoral life prevails
above the vineyards. Pan there stretches the pine
thyrsus down to vine-garlanded Dionysos.
The Adda flows majestically among wUlows in the
midst, and the vaUey is nearly straight. The prettiest
spot, perhaps, is at Tresenda or San Giacomo, where a
pass from Edolo and Brescia descends from the southern
hills. But the ValteUine has no great claim to beauty of
scenery. Its chief town, Sondrio, where we supped and
drank some special wine caUed il vino de' Signori Grigioni,
has been modernised in dull Italian fashion.

V
The hotel at Sondrio, La Maddalena, was in carnival
uproar of maskers, topers, and musicians aU night through.
It was as much as we could do to rouse the sleepy servants
and get a cup of coffee ere we started in the frozen dawn.
" Verfluchte Maddalena !" grumbled Christian as he
shouldered our portmanteaus and bore them in hot haste
to the post. Long experience only confirms the first
impression, that, of aU cold, the cold of an Itahan winter
is most penetrating. As we lumbered out of Sondrio in
a heavy diligence, I could have fancied myself back once
again at Radicofani or among the Ciminian hills. The
frost was penetrating. Fur coats would not keep it out ;
and we longed to be once more in open sledges on Bernina
248

Bacchus in Graubunden
rather than enclosed in that cold coupe. Now we passed
GrumeUo, the second largest of the renowned vine dis
tricts ; and always keeping the white mass of Monte di
Disgrazia in sight, rolled at last into Morbengo. Here the
ValteUine vintage properly ends, though much of the ordi
nary wine is probably supplied from the inferior produce
of these fields. It was past noon when we reached Colico,
and saw the Lake of Como ghttering in sunlight, dazzling
cloaks of snow on aU the mountains, which look as dry and
brown as dead beach leaves at this season. Our Bacchic
journey had reached its close ; and it boots not here to
tell in detaU how we made our way across the Splugen,
piercing its avalanches by low-arched gaUeries scooped
from the solid snow, and careering in our sledges down
perpendicular snow-fields, which no one who has crossed
that pass from the Itahan side in winter will forget. We
left the refuge station at the top together with a train of
wine-sledges, and passed them in the midst of the wild
descent. Looking back, I saw two of their horses stumble
in the plunge and roU headlong over. UnluckUy, in one
of these somersaults a man was injured. Flung ahead
into the snow by the first lurch, the sledge and wine-cask
crossed him like a garden roUer. Had his bed not been
of snow, he must have been crushed to death ; and as it
was, he presented a woeful appearance when he after
wards arrived at Splugen, VI
Though not strictly connected with the subject of this
paper, I shaU conclude these notes of winter wanderings
in the high Alps with an episode which illustrates their
curious vicissitudes.
It was late in the month of March, and nearly all the
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
mountain roads were open for wheeled vehicles. A
carriage and four horses came to meet us at the termina
tion of a railway journey at Ragatz. We spent one day
in visiting old houses of the Grisons aristocracy at Mayen-
feld and Zizers, rejoicing in the early sunshine, which had
spread the fields with spring flowers — primroses and ox-
lips, violets, anemones, and bright blue squills. At Chur
we slept, and early next morning started for our home
ward drive to Davos. Bad weather had declared itself
in the night. It blew violently, and the rain soon changed
to snow, frozen by a bitter north blast. Crossing the
dreary heath of Lenz was both magnificent and dreadful.
By the time we reached Wiesen, all the forests were laden
with snow, the roads deep in snow-drifts, the whole scene
wintrier than it had been the winter through.
At Wiesen we should have stayed, for evening was fast
setting in. But in ordinary weather it is only a two hours'
drive from Wiesen to Davos. Our coachman made no
objections to resuming the journey, and our four horses
had but a light load to drag. So we telegraphed for supper
to be prepared, and started between five and six.
A deep gorge has to be traversed, where the torrent
cleaves its way between jaws of limestone precipices. The
road is carried along ledges and through tunnels in the rock.
Avalanches, which sweep this passage annuaUy from the
hUls above, give it the name of Ziige, or the Snow-Paths.
As we entered the gorge darkness feU, the horses dragged
more heavily, and it soon became evident that our Tyro
lese driver was hopelessly drunk. He nearly upset us
twice by taking sharp turns in the road, banged the car
riage against telegraph-posts and jutting rocks, shaved
the very verge of the torrent in places where there was no
parapet, and, what was worst of aU, refused to leave his
box without a fight. The darkness by this time was all
250

SARGANS CASTLE, NEAR RAGATZ.

s«f^ttn<-

Bacchus in Graubunden
but total, and a blinding snow-storm swept howling
through the ravine. At length we got the carriage to a
dead stop, and floundered out in deep wet snow toward
some wooden huts where miners in old days made their
habitation. The place, by a curious, perhaps unconscious
irony, is caUed Hoffnungsau, or the Meadow of Hope.
Indeed, it is not iU named ; for many wanderers, escaping,
as we did, from the dreadful gorge of avalanches on a
stormy night, may have felt, as we now felt, their hope
reviving when they reached this shelter.
There was no hght ; nothing above, beneath, around,
on any side, but tearing tempest and snow whirled
through the ravine. The horses were taken out of the
carriage ; on their way to the stable, which fortunately
in these mountains regions wUl be always found beside
the poorest habitation, one of them feU back across a wall
and nearly broke his spine. Hoffnungsau is inhabited
all through the year. In its dismal, dark kitchen we
found a knot of workmen gathered together, and heard
there were two horses on the premises besides our
own. It then occurred to us that we might accomplish
the rest of the journey with such sledges as they bring
the wood on from the bills in winter, if coal-boxes or
boxes of any sort could be provided. These should be
lashed to the sledges and filled with hay. We were only
four persons ; my wife and a friend should go in one, my
self and my little girl in the other. No sooner thought
of than put into practice. These original conveyances
were improvised, and after two hours' halt on the Meadow
of Hope, we all set forth again at half-past eight.
I have rarely felt anything more piercing than the grim
cold of that journey. We crawled at a foot's pace through
changeful snow-drifts. The road was obhterated, and it
was my duty to keep a petroleum stable-lamp swinging
251

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
to illuminate the untracked wilderness. My httle girl
was snugly nested in the hay, and sound asleep with
a deep white covering of snow above her. MeanwhUe,
the drift clave in frozen masses to our faces, lashed by a
wind so fierce and keen that it was difficult to breathe
it. My forehead bone ached, as though with neuralgia
from the mere mask of icy snow upon it, plastered on with
frost. Nothing could be seen but miUions of white specks,
whirled at us in eddying concentric circles. Not far from
the entrance to the village we met our housefolk out with
lanterns to look for us. It was past eleven at night when
at last we entered warm rooms, and refreshed ourselves
for the tiring day with a jovial champagne supper.
Horses, carriage, and drunken driver reached home next
morning. J. A. S.

252

WINTER NIGHTS AT DAVOS

Light, marveUously soft yet penetrating, everywhere
diffused, everywhere reflected without radiance, poured
from the moon high above our heads in a sky tinted
through all shades and modulations of blue, from tur
quoise on the horizon to opaque sapphire at the zenith —
dolce color. (It is difficult to use the world colour for the
scene without suggesting an exaggeration. The blue is
almost indefinable, yet felt. But if possible, the total
effect of the night landscape should be rendered by careful
exclusion of tints from the word-palette. The art of the
etcher is more needed than that of the painter.) Heaven
overhead is set with stars, shooting intensely, smouldering
with duU red in Aldeboran, sparkling diamond-like in
Sirius, changing from orange to crimson and green in the
swart fire of yonder double star. On the snow this moon
light f aUs tenderly, not in hard white hght and strong black
shadow, but in tones of cream and ivory, rounding the
curves of drift. The mountain peaks alone ghstened as
though they were buUt of sUver burnished by an agate.
Far away they rise diminished in stature by the all-
pervading dimness of bright hght, that erases the distinc
tions of daytime. On the path before our feet lie crystals
of many hues, the splinters of a thousand gems. In the
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
wood there are caverns of darkness, alternating with spaces
of star-twinkled sky, or windows opened between russet
stems and sohd branches for the moony sheen. The green
of the pines is felt, although invisible, so soft in substance
that it seems less like velvet than some materialized
depth of dark green shadow.

II
Snow faUing noiseless and unseen. One only knows
that it is faUing by the blinking of our eyes as the flakes
settle on their hds and melt. The cottage windows shine
red, and moving lanterns of belated wayfarers define the
void around them. Yet the night is far from dark. The
forests and the mountain bulk beyond the vaUey loom
softly large and just distinguishable through a pearly haze-
The path is purest trackless whiteness, almost dazzhng
though it has no hght. This was what Dante felt when he
reached the lunar sphere —
" Pareva a me, che nube ne coprisse
Lucida, spessa, solida e pulita."
Walking silent, with insensible footfall, slowly, for the
snow is deep above our ankles, we wonder what the world
would be like if this were all. Could the human race be
acchmatised to this monotony (we say) perhaps emotion
would be rarer, yet more poignant, suspended brooding
on itself, and wakening by flashes to a quintessential
moon. Then fancy changes, and the thought occurs that
even so must be a planet, not yet whoUy made, nor caUed
to take her place among the sisterhood of hght and song.

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IV
The memory of things seen and done in moonhght is
like the memory of dreams. It is as a dream that I recall
the night of our tobogganing to Klosters, though it was
full enough of active energy. The moon was in her
second quarter, slightly filmed with very high thin clouds,
that disappeared as night advanced, leaving the sky and
stars in all their lustre. A sharp frost, sinking to three
degrees above zero Fahrenheit, with a fine pure wind, such
wind as here they call " the mountain breath." We drove
to Wolfgang in a two-horse sledge, four of us inside, and
our two Christians on the box. Up there, where the Alps
of Death descend to join the Lakehorn Alps, above the
Wolfswalk, there is a world of whiteness — frozen ridges,
engraved like cameos of aerial onyx upon the dark, star-
tremulous sky ; sculptured buttresses of snow, enclosing
hollows filled with diaphanous shadows, and sweeping aloft
into the uplands field of pure clear drift. Then came the
swift descent, the plunge into the pines, moon-silvered on
their frosted tops. The battalions of spruce that chmb
those hUls defined the dazzling snow from which they
sprang, like the black tufts upon an ermine robe. At the
proper moment we left our sledge, and the big Christian
took his reins in hand to foUow us. Furs and greatcoats
were abandoned. Each stood forth tightly accoutred,
with short coat, and clinging cap, and gaitered legs for
the toboggan. Off we started in line, with but brief
interval between, at first slowly, then ghdingly, and when
the impetus was gained, with darting, bounding, almost
savage swiftness — sweeping round corners, cutting the
hard snow-path with keen runners, avoiding the deep
ruts, trusting to chance, taking advantage of smooth
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Winter Nights at Davos
places, till the rush and swing and downward swoop
became mechanical. Space was devoured. Into the
massy shadows of the forest, where the pines joined over
head, we pierced without a sound, and felt far more than
saw the great rocks with their icicles ; and out again,
emerging into moonlight, met the vaUey spread beneath
our feet, the mighty peaks of the Silvretta and the vast
blue sky. On, on, hurrying, delaying not, the woods and
hiUs rushed by. Crystals upon the snow-banks ghttered
to the stars. Our souls would fain have stayed to drink
these marvels of the moon-world, but our limbs refused.
The magic of movement was upon us, and seven minutes
swallowed the varying impressions of two musical mUes.
The viUage lights drew near and nearer, then the sombre
village huts, and soon the speed grew less, and soon we
glided to our rest into the sleeping village street.

It was just past midnight. The moon had faUen to the
western horns. Orion's belt lay bar-like on the opening
of the pass, and Sirius shot flame on the Seehorn. A
more crystalline light, more full of fulgent stars, was never
seen, stars everywhere, but mostly scattered in large
sparkles on the snow. Big Christian went in front,
tugging toboggans by their strings, as Gulliver, in some
old woodcut, drew the fleets of Lilhput. Through the
brown wood chalets of Selfrangr, up to the undulating
meadows, where the snow slept pure and crisp, he led us.
There we sat a whUe, and drank the clear air, cooled to
zero, but innocent and mild as mother Nature's mUk.
Then in an instant, down, down through the hamlet, with
its chalets, stables, pumps, and logs, the slumbrous hamlet,
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
where one dog barked, and darkness dwelt upon the path
of ice, down with the tempest of a dreadful speed, that
shot each rider upward in the air, and made the frame of
the toboggan tremble — down over hillocks of hard frozen
snow, dashing and bounding, to the river and the bridge.
No bones were broken, though the race was thrice renewed,
and men were spilt upon the roadside by some furious
plunge. This amusement has the charm of peril and the
unforeseen. In nowise else can colder, keener air be
drunken at such furious speed. The joy, too, of the
engine-driver and the steeplechaser is upon us. Alas,
that it should be so short ! If only roads were better
made for the purpose, there would be no end to it ; for
the toboggan cannot lose his wind. But the good thing
faUs at last, and from the sUence of the moon we pass into
the sUence of the fields of sleep.

VI
The new stable is a huge wooden building, with raftered
lofts to stow the hay, and staUs for many cows and horses.
It stands snugly in an angle of the pine-wood, bordering
upon the great horse meadow. Here at night the air is
warm and tepid with the breath of kine. Returning from
my forest walk, I spy one window yeUow in the moonlight
with a lamp. I lift the latch. The hound knows me,
and does not bark. I enter the stable, where six horses
are munching their last meal. Upon the corn-bin sits a
knecht. We light our pipes and talk. He teUs me of the
valley of Arosa (a hawk's flight westward over yonder
hUls), how deep in grass its summer lawns, how crystal-
clear its stream, how blue its little lakes, how pure, with
out a taint of mist, " too beautiful to paint," its sky in
258

Winter Nights at Davos
winter ! This knecht is an Ardiiser, and the valley of
Arosa lifts itself to heaven above his Langwies home. It
is his duty now to harness a sleigh for some night work.
We shake hands and part — I to sleep, he for the snow.

VII
' The lake has frozen late this year, and there are places
in it where the ice is not yet firm. Little snow has faUen
since it froze — about three inches at the deepest, driven
by winds and wrinkled like the ribbed sea-sand. Here
and there the ice-floor is quite black and clear, reflecting
stars, and dark as heaven's own depths. Elsewhere it is
of a suspicious whiteness, blurred in surface, with jagged
cracks and chasms, treacherously mended by the hand of
frost. Moving slowly, the snow cries beneath our feet,
and the big crystals tinkle. These are shaped like fern-
fronds, growing fan-wise from a point, and set at various
angles, so that the moonhght takes them with capricious
touch. They flash, and are quenched, and flash again,
light darting to light along the level surface, while the
saning planets and the stars look down complacent at this
mimicry of heaven. Everything above, around, beneath,
is very beautiful — the slumbrous woods, the snowy feUs,
and the far distance painted in faint blue upon the tender
background of the sky. Everything is placid and beauti
ful ; and yet the place is terrible. For, as we walk, the
lake groans, with throttled sobs, and sudden crackhngs of
its joints, and sighs that shiver, undulating from afar, and
pass beneath our feet, and die away in distance when they
reach the shore. And now and then an upper crust of ice
gives way ; and will the gulfs then drag us down ? We
are in the very centre of the lake. There is no use in
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
thinking or in taking heed. Enjoy the moment, then, and
march. Enjoy the contrast between this circumambient
serenity and sweetness, and the dreadful sense of inse
curity beneath. Is not, indeed, our whole life of this
nature ? A passage over perUous deeps, roofed by in
finity and sempiternal things, surrounded, too, with
evanescent forms, that, hke these crystals, trodden under
foot, or melted by the Fohn-wind into dew, flash, in some
lucky moment, with a light that mimics stars ! But to
aUegorise and sermonise is out of place here. It is but
the expedient of those who cannot etch sensation by the
burin of their art of words.

VIII
It is ten o'clock upon Sylvester Abend, or New Year's
Eve. Herr Buol sits with his wife at the head of his long
table. His family and serving-folk are around him.
There is his mother, with little Ursula, his child, upon her
knee. The old lady is the mother of four comely
daughters and nine stalwart sons, the eldest of whom is
now a grizzled man. Besides our host, four of the brothers
are here to-night ; the handsome melancholy Georg, who
is so gentle in his speech ; Simeon, with his diplomatic
face ; Florian, the student of medicine ; and my friend,
colossal-breasted Christian. Palmy came a little later,
worried with many cares, but happy to his heart's core.
No optimist was ever more convinced of his phUosophy
than Palmy. After them, below the salt, were ranged
the knechts and porters, the marmiton from the kitchen,
and innumerable maids. The board was tesselated with
plates of birnen-brod and eier-brod, kiichli and cheese
and butter ; and Georg stirred grampampuli in a mighty
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Winter Nights at Davos
metal bowl. For the uninitiated, it may be needful to
explain these Davos delicacies. Birnen-brod is what the
Scotch would call a " bun," or massive cake, composed of
shced pears, almonds, spices, and a little flour. Eier-brod
is a saffron-coloured sweet bread, made with eggs ; and
kiichli is a kind of pastry, crisp and flimsy, fashioned into
various devices of cross, star, and scroll. Grampampuli
is simply brandy burnt with sugar, the most unsophisti
cated punch I ever drank from tumblers. The frugal
people of Davos, who live on bread and cheese and dried
meat all the year, indulge themselves but once with these
unwonted dainties in the winter.
The occasion was cheerful, and yet a httle solemn.
The scene was feudal. For these Buols are the scions of
a warrior race :
" A race illustrious for heroic deeds ;
Humbled, but not degraded."
During the six centuries through which they have lived
nobles in Davos, they have sent forth scores of fighting
men to foreign lands, ambassadors to France and Venice
and the Milanese, governors to Chiavenna and Bregaglia
and the much-contested ValteUine. Members of their
house are Counts of Buol-Schauenstein in Austria, Frei-
herrs of Muhlingen and Berenberg in the now German
Empire. They keep the patent of nobility conferred on
them by Henri IV. Their ancient coat — parted per pale
azure and argent, with a dame of the fourteenth century
bearing in her hand a rose, all counter changed — is carved
in wood and monumental marble on the churches and old
houses hereabouts. And from immemorial antiquity the
Buol of Davos has sat thus on Sylvester Abend with family
and folk around him, summoned from alp and snowy
field to drink grampampuli and break the birnen-brod.
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
These rites performed, the men and maids began to
sing — brown arms lounging on the table, and red hands
folded in white aprons— serious at first in hymn-like
cadences, then breaking into wilder measures with a jodel
at the close. There is a measured solemnity in the per
formance, which strikes the stranger as somewhat comic.
But the singing was good ; the voices strong and clear in
tone, no hesitation and no shirking of the melody. It
was clear that the singers enjoyed the music for its own
sake, with half-shut eyes, as they take dancing, solidly,
with deep-drawn breath, sustained and indefatigable.
But eleven struck ; and the two Christians, my old friend
and Palmy, said we should be late for church. They had
promised to take me with them to see bell-ringing in the
tower. AU the young men of the vUlage meet, and draw
lots in the Stube of the Rathhaus. One party toUs the
old year out, the other rings the new year in. He who
comes last is sconced three litres of Veltliner for the com
pany. This jovial fine was ours to pay to-night.
When we came into the air we found a bitter frost ;
the whole sky clouded over ; a north wind whirling snow
from alp and forest through the murky gloom. The
benches and broad walnut tables of the Rathhaus were
crowded with men in shaggy homespun of brown and
grey frieze. Its low wooden roof and walls enclosed an
atmosphere of smoke, denser than the external snow-drift.
But our welcome was hearty, and we found a score of
friends. Titanic Fopp, whose limbs are Michelangelesque
in length ; spectacled Morosani ; the little taUor Kramer,
with a French horn on his knees ; the puckered forehead
of the Baumeister ; the Troll-shaped postman ; peasants
and woodmen, known on far excursions upon pass and
upland vaUey. Not one but carried on his face the
memory of winter strife with avalanche and snow-drift,
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FRAUENKIRCH.

Winter Nights at Davos
of horses struggling through Fluela whirlwinds, and wine-
casks tugged across Bernina, and haystacks guided down
precipitous guUies at thundering speed 'twixt pine and
pine, and larches felled in distant glens beside the frozen
watercourses. Here we were, aU met together for one
hour from our several homes and occupations, to welcome
in the year with clinked glasses and cries of Prosit Neu-
jahr !
The tolling beUs above us stopped. Our turn had
come. Out into the snowy air we tumbled, beneath the
row of wolves' heads that adorn the pent-house roof. A
few steps brought us to the stiU God's acre, where the
snow lay deep and cold upon high-mounded graves of
many generations. We crossed it sUently, bent our heads
to the low Gothic arch, and stood within the tower. It
was thick darkness there. But far above, the beUs began
again to clash and jangle confusedly, with voUeys of de
moniac joy. Successive flights of ladders, each ending
in a giddy platform hung across the gloom, climb to the
height of some hundred and fifty feet ; and aU their rungs
were crusted with frozen snow, deposited by trampling
boots. For up and down these stairs, ascending and de
scending, moved other than angels — the frieze- jacketed
Burschen, Grisons bears, rejoicing in their exercise,
exhilarated with the tingling noise of beaten metal. We
reached the first room safely, guided by firm-footed Chris
tian, whose one candle just defined the rough waUs and the
slippery steps. There we found a band of boys puUing
ropes that set the beUs in motion. But our destination
was not reached. One more aerial ladder, perpendicular
in darkness, brought us swiftly to the home of sound. It
is a small square chamber, where the beUs are hung, filled
with the interlacement of enormous beams, and pierced to
north and south by open windows, from whose parapets
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
I saw the vUlage and the vaUey spread beneath. The
fierce wind hurried through it, charged with snow, and its
narrow space was thronged with men. Men on the plat
form, men on the window-sills, men grapphng the beUs
with iron arms, men brushing by to reach the stairs,
crossing, re-crossing, shouldering their mates, drinking
red wine from gigantic beakers, exploding crackers, firing
squibs, shouting and yelling in corybantic chorus. They
yelled and shouted, one could see it by their open mouths
and ghttering eyes ; but not a sound from human lungs
could reach our ears. The overwhelming incessant
thunder of the bells drowned all. It thrilled the tym
panum, ran through the marrow of the spine, vibrated in
the inmost entrails. Yet the brain was only steadied and
excited by this sea of brazen noise. After a few moments
I knew the place and felt at home in it. Then I enjoyed
a spectacle which sculptors might have envied. For they
ring the bells in Davos after this fashion : — The lads
below set them going with ropes. The men above climb
in pairs on ladders to the beams from which they are sus
pended. Two mighty pine-trees, roughly squared and
built into the waUs, extend from side to side across the
belfry. Another, from which the bells hang, connects
these massive trunks at right angles. Just where the
central beam is wedged into the two paraUel supports,
the ladders reach them from each side of the belfry, so
that, bending from the higher rung of the ladder, and
leaning over, stayed upon the lateral beam, each pair of
men can keep one bell in movement with their hands.
Each comrade plants one leg upon the ladder, and sets
the other knee firmly athwart the horizontal pine. Then
round each other's waist they twine left arm and right.
The two have thus become one man. Right arm and left
are free to grasp the bell's horns, sprouting at its crest
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Winter Nights at Davos
beneath the beam. With a grave rhythmic motion, bend
ing sideward in a close embrace, swaying and returning to
their centre from the weU-knit loins, they drive the force
of each strong muscle into the vexed beU. The impact
is earnest at first, but soon it becomes frantic. The men
take something from each other of exalted enthusiasm.
This efflux of their combined energies inspires them and
exasperates the mighty resonance of metal which they
rule. They are lost in a trance of what approximates to
dervish passion — so thriUing is the surge of sound, so
potent are the rhythms they obey. Men come and tug
them by the heels. One grasps the starting thews upon
their calves. Another is impatient for their place. But
they strain stiU, locked together, and forgetful of the
world. At length they have enough : then slowly,
clingingly, unclasp, turn round with gazing eyes,
and are resumed, sedately, into the diurnal round of
common life. Another pair is in their room upon the
beam. The Englishman who saw those things stood looking
up, enveloped in his ulster with the grey cowl thrust upon
his forehead, hke a monk. One candle cast a grotesque
shadow of him on the plastered waU. And when his
chance came, though he was but a weakling, he too
climbed and for some moments hugged the beam, and felt
the madness of the swinging bell. Descending, he won
dered long and strangely whether he ascribed too much
of feeling to the men he watched. But no, that was im
possible. There are emotions deeply seated in the joy
of exercise, when the body is brought into play, and masses
move in concert, of which the subject is but half conscious.
Music and dance, and the delirium of the battle or the
chase, act thus upon spontaneous natures. The mystery
of rhythm and associated energy and blood tingling in
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
sympathy is here. It hes at the root of man's most
tyrannous instinctive impulses.
It was past one when we reached home, and now a
meditative man might well have gone to bed. But no
one thinks of sleeping on Sylvester Abend. So there
foUowed bowls of punch in one friend's room, where
English, French, and German blent together in convivial
Babel ; and flasks of old Montagner in another. Palmy,
at this period, wore an archdeacon's hat, and smoked a
churchwarden's pipe ; and neither were his own, nor did
he derive anything ecclesiastical or Anglican from the
association. Late in the morning we must saUy forth,
they said, and roam the town. For it is the custom here
on New Year's night to greet acquaintances, and ask for
hospitahty, and no one may deny these self-invited
guests. We turned out again into the grey snow-swept
gloom, a curious Comus — not at aU like Greeks, for we
had neither torches in our hands nor rose-wreaths to
suspend upon a lady's door-posts. And yet I could
not refrain, at this supreme moment of jollity, in the
zero temperature, amid my Grisons friends, from hum
ming to myself verses from the Greek Anthology —
" The die is east ! JNay, light the torch !
I'll take the road ! Up, courage, ho !
Why linger pondering in the porch ?
Upon Love's revel we will go !
" Shake off those fumes of wine ! Hang care
"" And caution ! What has Love to do
With prudence ? r Let the torches flare !
Quick, drown the doubts that hampered you !
" Cast weary wisdom to the wind !
One thing, but one alone, I know :
Love bent e'en Jove and made him blind !
Upon Love's revel we will go !"
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Winter Nights at Davos
And then again —
"I've drunk sheer madness ! Not with wine,
But old fantastic tales, I'll arm
My heart in heedlessness divine,
And dare the road, nor dream of harm !
" I'll join Love's rout ! Let thunder break,
Let lightning blast me by the way !
Invulnerable Love shall shake
His aegis o'er my head to-day."
This last epigram was not inappropriate to an invahd
about to begin the fifth act in a roystering night's adven
ture. And still once more —
" Cold blows the winter wind ; 'tis Love,
Whose sweet eyes swim with honeyed tears,
That bears me to thy doors, my love,
Tossed by the storm of hopes and fears.
" Cold blows the blast of aching Love ;
But be thou for my wandering sail,
Adrift upon these waves of love,
Safe harbour from the whistling gale !
However, upon this occasion, though we had winter
wind enough, and cold enough, there was not much love
in the business. My arm was firmly clenched in Christian
Buol's, and Christian Palmy came behind, trolhng out
songs in Italian dialect, with stiU recurring canaille
choruses, of which the facile rhymes seemed mostly made
on a prolonged amu-u-u-r. It is noticeable that Italian
ditties are speciaUy designed for fellows shouting in the
streets at night. They seem in keeping there, and
nowhere else that I could ever see. And these Davosers
took to them naturaUy when the time for Comus came.
It was between four and five in the morning, and nearly
all the houses in the place were dark. The taU church-
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
tower and spire loomed up above us in grey twilight.
The tireless wind stUl swept thin snow from feU and
forest. But the frenzied bells had sunk into their twelve
month's slumber, which shall be broken only by decorous
tolhngs at less festive times. I wondered whether they
were tinghng still with the heart-throbs and with the
pressure of those many arms ? Was their old age
warmed, as mine was, with that gust of life — the young
men who had clung to them like bees to lily-beUs, and
shaken all their locked-up tone and shrillness into the
wild winter air ? Alas ! how many generations of the
young have handled them ; and they are still there,
frozen in their belfry ; and the young grow middle-aged,
and old, and die at last ; and the bells they grappled in
their lust of manhood toll them to their graves, on which
the tireless wind will, winter after winter, sprinkle snow
from alps and forests which they knew.
" There is a light," cried Christian, " up in Anna's
window !" "A light ! a hght !" the Comus shouted.
But how to get at the window, which is pretty high
above the ground, and out of reach of the most ardent
reveUers ? We search a neighbouring shed, extract a
stable ladder, and in two seconds Palmy has climbed
to the topmost rung, while Christian and Georg hold
it firm upon the snow beneath. Then begins a passage
from some comic opera of Mozart's or Cimarosa's — an
escapade familiar to Spanish or Italian students, which
recalls the stage. It is an episode from Don Giovanni,
translated to this dark-etched scene of snowy hiUs, and
Gothic tower, and muUioned windows deep-embayed
beneath their eaves and icicles. Deh vieni alia finestra !
sings Palmy-LeporeUo ; the chorus answers : Deh vieni !
Perche non vieni ancora ? pleads Leporello ; the chorus
shouts : Perche ? Mio amu-u-u-r, sighs Leporello ; and
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Winter Nights at Davos
Echo cries, amu-u-u-r ! All the wooing, be it noticed,
is conducted in Italian. But the actors murmur to each
other in Davoser Deutsch, " She won't come, Palmy !
It is far too late ; she is gone to bed. Come down ;
you'U wake the village with your caterwauling !" But
LeporeUo waves his broad archdeacon's hat, and resumes
a flood of flexible Bregaglian. He has a shrewd suspicion
that the girl is peeping from behind the window-curtain ;
and tells us, bending down from the ladder, in a hoarse
stage-whisper, that we must have patience : " These
girls are kittle cattle, who take long to draw : but if
your lungs last out, they're sure to show." And Leporello
is right. Faint heart ne'er won fair lady. From the
summit of his ladder, by his eloquent Italian tongue,
he brings the shy bird down at last. We hear the un
barring of the house door, and a comely maiden, in her
Sunday dress, welcomes us politely to her ground-floor
sitting-room. The Comus enters, in grave order, with
set speeches, handshakes, aad inevitable Prosits ! It is
a large low chamber, with a huge stone stove, wide
benches fixed along the walls, and a great oval table.
We sit how and where we can. Red wine is produced,
and eier-brod and kiichli. Fraulein Anna serves us
sedately, holding her own with decent self-respect against
the inrush of the revellers. She is quite alone ; but are
not her father and mother in bed above, and within
earshot ? Besides, the Comus, even at this abnormal
hour and after an abnormal night, is weU conducted.
Things seem slipping into a decorous wine-party, when
Leporello readjusts the broad-brimmed hat upon his
head, and very cleverly acts a little love-scene for our
benefit. Fraulein Anna takes this as a delicate com
pliment, and the thing is so prettily done, in truth, that
not the sternest taste could be offended. MeanwhUe
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Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
another party of night-wanderers, attracted by our
mirth, break in. More Prosits and clinked glasses
follow ; and with a fair good-morning to our hostess, we
retire. It is too late to think of bed. " The quincunx of
heaven," as Sir Thomas Browne phrased it on a dis-
simUar occasion, " runs low. . . . The huntsmen are up
in America ;" and not in America only ; for the hunts
men, if there are any this night in Graubunden, have
long been out upon the snow, and the stable lads are
dragging the sledges from their sheds to carry down the
mails to Landquart. We meet the porters from the
various hotels, bringing letter-bags and luggage to the
post. It is time to turn in and take a cup of black coffee
against the rising sun.

IX
Some nights, even in Davos, are spent, even by an
invalid, in bed. A leaflet, therefore, of " Sleep-chasings "
may not inappropriately be flung, as envoy to so many
wanderings on foot and sledge upon the winter snows.
The first is a confused medley of things familiar and
things strange. I have been dreaming of far-away old
German towns, with gabled houses deep in snow; dreaming
of chalets in forgotten Alpine glens, where woodcutters
come plunging into sleepy light from gloom, and sinking
down beside the stove to shake the drift from their
rough shoulders ; dreaming of vast veils of icicles upon the
gaunt black rocks in places where no foot of man will
pass, and where the snow is weaving eyebrows over the
ledges of grey whirlwind-beaten precipices ; dreaming
of Venice, forlorn beneath the windy drip of rain, the
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Winter Nights at Davos
gas-lamps flickering on the swimming piazzetta, the
barche idle, the gondolier wrapped in his threadbare
cloak, alone ; dreaming of Appenines, with world-old
cities, brown, above the brown sea of dead chestnut
boughs ; dreaming of stormy tides, and watchers aloft
in Ughthouses when day is finished ; dreaming of dead
men and women and dead chUdren in the earth, far down
beneath the snow-drifts, six feet deep. And then I
lift my face, awaking, from my piUow ; the pallid moon
is on the valley, and the room is filled with spectral
light. I sleep, and change my dreaming. This is a hospice
on an unfrequented pass, between sad peaks, beside a
little black lake, overdrifted with soft snow. I pass into
the house-room, gliding sUently. An old man and an
old woman are nodding, bowed in deepest slumber, by
the stove. A young man ,plays the zither on a table.
He lifts his head, stiU modulating with his fingers on the
strings. He looks right through me with wide anxious
eyes. He does not see me, but sees Italy, I know, and
some one wandering on a sandy shore.
I sleep, and change my dreaming. This is St. Stephen's
Church in Wien. Inside, the lamps are burning dimly in
the choir. There is fog in the aisles ; but through the
sleepy air and over the red candles flies a wild soprano's
voice, a boy's soul in its singing sent to heaven.
I sleep, and change my dreaming. From the mufflers
in which his father, the mountebank, has wrapped the
child, to carry him across the heath, a little tumbling-
boy emerges in soiled tights. He is half asleep. His
father scrapes the fiddle. The boy shortens his red
belt, kisses his lingers to us, and ties himself into a knot
among the glasses on the table.
I sleep, and change my dreaming. I am on the parapet
271

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
of a huge circular tower, hoUow like a weU, and pierced
with windows at irregular intervals. The parapet is
broad, and slabbed with red Verona marble. Around
me are athletic men, all naked, in the strangest attitudes
of studied rest, down-gazing, as I do, into the depths
below. There comes a confused murmur of voices,
and the tower is threaded and rethreaded with great
cables. Up these there climb to us a crowd of young
men, clinging to the ropes and flinging their bodies
sideways on aerial trapezes. My heart trembles with
keen joy and terror. For nowhere else could plastic
forms be seen more beautiful, and nowhere else is peril
more apparent. Leaning my chin upon the utmost
verge, I wait. I watch one youth, who smiles and soars
to me ; and when his face is almost touching mine, he
speaks, but what he says I know not.
I sleep, and change my dreaming. The whole world
rocks to its foundations. The mountain summits that
I know are shaken. They bow their bristling crests.
They are falling, falling on us, and the earth is riven.
I wake in terror, shouting : Insolitis tremubetjnt
motibtjs alpes ! An earthquake, slight but real, has
stirred the ever-wakeful Vesta of the brain to this Vir-
gilian quotation.
I sleep, and change my dreaming. Once more at
night I sledge alone upon the Klosters road. It is the
point where the woods close over it and moonlight may
not pierce the boughs. There come shrill cries of many
voices from behind, and rushings that pass by and
vanish. Then on their sledges I behold the phantoms
of the dead who died in Davos, longing for their homes ;
and each flies past me, shrieking in the still cold air ; and
phosphorescent like long meteors, the pageant turns the
windings of the road below and disappears.
272

Winter Nights at Davos
I sleep, and change my dreaming. This is the top of
some high mountain, where the crags are crueUy tortured
and cast in enormous splinters on the ledges of cliffs
grey with old-world ice. A ravine, opening at my feet,
plunges down immeasurably to a dim and distant sea.
Above me soars a precipice embossed with a gigantic
ice-bound shape. As I gaze thereon I find the lineaments
and limbs of a Titanic man chained and naUed to the
rock. His beard has grown for centuries, and flowed this
way and that, adown his breast and over to the stone on
either side ; and the whole of him is covered with a
greenish ice, ancient beyond the memory of man. " This
is Prometheus," I whisper to myself, " and I am alone
on Caucasus." J. A. S.

273

AN EPILOGUE
As a final word for this book, which has dealt so much
with snows and avalanches, it may be worth adding that,
while the sheets are going through the press, we are
enduring what may be termed the rigours of a mediaeval
winter. Thirteen feet of snow, measured by the gauge,
are said to have fallen since the beginning of December.
The inhabitants of the valley declare that nothing to
equal it has been experienced since 1817, when Davos-
Platz suffered great injuries from avalanches. The perU,
indeed, has been so serious that the Feuer-Gewehr, or
fire-brigade, placed itself at the disposal of the Landam
mann, in case of sudden wreckage by the descent of
avalanches. He, accepting their offer, made a pubhc
announcement that aU the able-bodied men and lads of
the place should obey the orders of the staff in command.
To those acquainted with the phlegmatic nature of the
Swiss mountaineer, and his habitual calmness under
dangers due to the climate, this fact carried a grave
significance, and made us feel that the natives were
preparing to face a serious peril. Fortunately, the vast
accumulations of snow, which hang suspended over our
heads, seem, at the date when 1 am writing, to be settling
down, owing to the prevalence of a sharp frost, which
binds, congeals, and forms a substantial crust of ice upon
the surface. 274

An Epilogue

Up to the middle of December we had very little
snow this year. An old peasant, however, remarked
to me : " You will see that before New Year snow wUl
faU, and it will go on snowing tiU May." His prediction
has been partly justified. We have now at least seven
feet of snow upon the valley. Where the wind has blown
it into drifts the depth is, of course, enormous. In
January a huge avalanche fell above Siiss, on the Fluela
road, burying a carter in Herr Hans Meisser's service.
The man's body has not yet been discovered. Between
the 2nd and the 9th of February it snowed almost
incessantly, day and night, softly, without wind, at a
comparatively high temperature. Consequently, incal
culable masses of heavy wet snow accumulated on all
the upper mountain-sides. The raUway has been blocked
for a week. The postal service and aU traffic are carried
on by the antique method of little one-horse open sledges ;
and we do not know when the line will be opened again.
AU telegraphic communications ceased for two days.
On Monday the 8th, between 11 and 12 a.m., a sharp
storm-wind blew in gusts. This brought down several
(of the so-called) Dust-Avalanches (Staub-Lawinen).1
This name is given to the species which falls in mid
winter, when the snow is loose and powdery, still capable
of being lifted up and carried in the air, to distinguish
it from the other kind of Ground-Avalanche (Grund-
Lawine), which slides in spring along the surface of the
hills, and through deeply cloven ravines. One fell above
Davos-Dorfli, carrying away three hay-stables, and
scattering the ruins over the post-road. The VUla
Wieseli was blocked with beams and hay and debris
of aU sorts. In one of the stables were three cows, which
1 See the third Essay above.
275 s 2

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
perished ; and a man, who was extricated ahve. Another
avalanche started upon the very top of the Hornli. It
detached the whole snow masses from the mountain
side, and hurled them into the valley. This immense
stream of snow bifurcated at the ridge of Drusatcha.
One half flowed down upon Laret, carrying hay-stables
with it, and burying the post-road. The other half
tore away the secular forests of the Seehorn, destroyed
hundreds of trees, laid bare large spaces where flourishing
woods had been, poured with all this weight of timber
over the railway hne, and ended at the lake. I walked
up to the top of it the other day. It has the appearance
of a glacier, furrowed, jagged, broken into stairs and
ridges like an ice-faU. Everywhere the surface bristles
with broken stems ; some of the trees are at least 300
years old, and fifteen to twenty feet in girth : cembras,
spruce firs, and larches. Among them I recognised one
giant, which had been carried from my own wood a
thousand feet above the valley. It lay across the railway
hne, under some twenty feet of condensed snow-drift. A
third avalanche fell from the Dorfliberg, poured through
the Hell-Bach, crossed the post-road, and, spreading
out upon the lake, broke in the ice, which is three feet
thick now. This crossed a portion of meadow belonging
to me at Meierhof . A fourth came down in the Dischma
Thai, tearing away a wood of fine old trees, and utterly
wrecking a stable in which there were ten cows with their
owner. The man escaped, but only one cow was saved
alive. Two days afterwards they found a little calf,
still breathing, in the ruins, and an unfortunate ox, dead,
but warm, who had wrenched off both his horns in mad
efforts to save his life. I also went to see this avalanche,
and found a peasant digging out his cottage. It was
276

An Epilogue
surrounded by accumulations of heavy snow and great
broken trees. Yet, strange to say, the buUding re
mained intact. This was due to the fact that the
blast of the avalanche, which is even more formidable
than the snow, had taken a different hne from that on
which the homestead stood. The man told me that
when the avalanche descended his mother was seated in
the living-room, and saw the horrible thing advancing
to overwhelm her. She could not move. In a few
seconds both the windows of the room were enveloped
in opaque snow-drifts. Left in the dark, the old woman
found herself ahve and safe, greatly to her own surprise.
Beyond this place the Dischma Thai is blocked with two
other deluges of avalanches, which crossed the stream,
and devastated broad tracts of forest. At Clavadel,
on the same occasion, another feU, destroying huts and
cattle. Meanwhile the roads to Wiesen and Siiss are
choked. Upon the Fluela, aU the folk who live at the
Alpenrose, Tschuggen, the Hospiz, etc., have been for
days imprisoned ; nothing is known of them, since the
telegraph is broken. What has happened in the Ziige
can only be guessed, because it is impassable. When
explorers venture into that awful gorge they wiU probably
find that it is a howling wilderness of snow and wreckage.
The simultaneous faU of these avalanches on Monday,
February 9, illustrates one law which governs them. It
was the play of fretful wind upon the ill-poised weight of
snow suspended in high airy stations that dislodged the
first ton or two. These drew down whole acres, and hurled
the snow-torrents with a force that overcame resist
ance. The temperature feU to zero through two days and
nights succeeding these disasters. That froze the snow
277

Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
upon the heights, and saved Davos from a huge catas
trophe. While I am now writing, however, the wind
has again shifted to a stormy quarter, and it is snowing
in gusts. The air is as thick with snow, torn up from the
surface of the vaUey and poured upon it from above,
as London air with fog. j _al_ g
Am Hof, Davos-Platz,
February 13, 1892.

THE END

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MAP ACCOMPANYING "OUR LIFE IN THE SWISS HIGHLANDS," BY J. A. SYMONDS AND HIS DAUGHTER MARGARET. (A. AND C. BLACK.)